Disgusting

This week has been HORRIBLE after my weigh in!! Here's my confessional:

 

My daughter turned four on Tuesday. My mom, step dad and aunt flew in to celebrate with us.  My aunt, who owns a bakery and makes the most delightful, exquisite cakes EVER! The cake, with my beautiful little girl, is four layers, alternating white and chocolate cake, with an amazing chocolate ganache. It was flown here from Cleveland on my Aunt's lap.  And worth every minute and every mile!

Then was the Fourth of July. The parade starts in front of our house, so our tradition (with Jen!) is to have a yummy vodka slush as we watch what is USUALLY a pretty depressing parade (although this year was an exception!). Slush is a mix of sugar water, orange juice, lemonade & limade (the frozen concentrates) and vodka, served over 7Up.

Then I followed it that afternoon with some homemade Sangria, which was fabulous.

And the candy - oh the candy!  I swear my kids get more candy on 4th of July than they do on Halloween! For less work, too.  You sit in one place and they THROW it at you. I will openly admit, I raided their bags for banana Laffy Taffy and Tootsie Rolls (the big ones, none of that midget stuff for me)

The 5th started prep for the WORLD'S MESSIEST RAINBOW ART PARTY!  I made all the food from scratch. One of the messy art activities was decorating cupcakes to take home.  Those were, of course, rainbow colors as well. And I had to taste test the fruit dip (cream cheese + marshmallow fluff), whipped cream & buttercream icings. Quality control, you know...





 And cake. Can't have a party without cake!  I made an ice cream sandwich cake, with M&Ms on top and crushed up chocolate cookies inside (along with the hot fudge and ice cream sandwiches).  I homemade all the whipped cream and froze it into one delightful cake. 

And today? I ate my weight in gummy bears.

 So what's the moral of the story?  

I hurt. I feel "ooky." I can barely make a fist my hands hurt SO BADLY. I crash several times a day from sheer lack of energy. My temper is short.  My stomach is bloated. 

WHY OH WHY do I torture myself?? 

I know sugar hurts. I know it makes me feel gross and squishy.  Was all the indulgence from the past week WORTH it? 

Nope. Not a chance. 

I've thrown away the parade candy (except for a few things I stashed in the diaper bag, only for the kids though), the cake it gone and I'm going to ask my hubby to take those chewy little gummy guys to work with him this week. 

Juicing will be a challenge this week, as our "total kitchen renovation" starts on Tuesday. My kitchen is currently relocated to my basement, so juicing won't be convenient. But it must happen. 

Detox & getting back to goal again (and lower, maybe! without all these stumbling blocks!) is on the forefront of my mind. 

I want to get out for a run.  We aren't supposed to be over 100º this week, as we have been for the last 10+ days. I'm hoping that, compared to the 118º heat index from Saturday, the 90º weather will feel nice enough for a quick run outside. :-) 

I think I need to get my mind right this week, too. It's something I'm doing, for myself and my family, to make our lives better.

This is a LIFESTYLE, not a diet. 

It's HEALTHY. Sugar is a toxin flowing through my blood!

It's LIFE-ALTERING.  Pain is gone, mood is stable, energy is increased.  

It's CHEAPER. Fresh food is by and large much less expensive that prepackaged and processed foods.

It's CREATIVE.  It's fun to experiment, to find new ways of making old favorites, new flavors and new foods.

It's DOABLE. Proven in that I have DONE it before. I HAVE stuck with this, I CAN do it and it IS worth it.

It is NOT: 

unattainable

a punishment

a rule without exception

I have worked TOO hard and TOO long to give up now.

My race schedule is looking like this: 

August 18th - "fun" run for The Color Run 5K

October 14th - Go! St. Louis Halloween 10K

October 21st - (My 31st birthday) Rock'n'Roll Half Marathon

Thanksgiving - Turkey day 5K with my mom in Atlanta, GA

So it's time to get serious.

Mid week check in

Monday, day 1.

WI 154; Lots of extra effort to make sure I wasn't eating sugar. I got out of the habit of paying attention.



Tuesday, day 2.

WI: 153; Headache, SUPER OVER EMOTIONAL, joints still hurting but feeling better. Appetite going away, left with 8ww points after dinner (drank a Corona to use some ;-)




Wednesday, day 3.

WI: 150!!!!  Feeling GOOD today! Appetite gone. Cravings low. Although I ran out of all my juicing veggies today, so I don't know what I'll do about that tomorrow.  I'm feeling WAY less bloated today as well.


My kiddo is still sick, so I haven't made it to the gym yet this week. It's not looking too promising that I'll be able to go before the week is up. Next week is busy - family coming for my DD's birthday, the 4th of July festivities (including vodka slush, it's tradition!) and the following Saturday a big big birthday party for my big girl!  But the following week, she has camp at the Y daily, so we'll be back in the swing of things then!

Thanks for checking in! How are YOU doing this week, detox-diet-exercise or otherwise?

Juicing

Taking another step towards healthy!

My mom was in town this weekend and has been doing a lot of juicing. I am NOT a fan of "thick" drinks. My husband makes a fruit smoothie every.single.morning for himself and the kiddos, but the thickenss of it just makes me gag. So when my mom said "Let's go get a juicer and you can see if you like it!"  I was NOT on board.

We did that Saturday. After we picked up the juicer, we went to Whole Foods and loaded up on greens, veggies and a few pieces of fruit. When we got home, we set up the juicer and got to work.

This was our "recipe" the first day:

Kale
Carrots
Cucumbers
2 Apples
3 Ribs of Celery
1 Lemon
About 1" of fresh ginger

It smelled like freshly mowed grass - and it tasted WORSE!!

So the second day, after a little research, I tried something different.  I got rid of the celery, which I read can make the juice bitter. I swapped the lemon for an orange.  I split my greens between watercress and kale and only used 1 apple.  That was INCREDIBLE!

Then this morning, I skipped the apple and orange - and added PINEAPPLE - omg soo good!!

Today my "recipe" was:

1/4 of a fresh pineapple
Cucumber
Carrots
Spinach
Watercress

It was sooooo goood!

Am I doing a "juice cleanse"? Nope. I'm not even doing it more than once a day. At this point, it's just a morning thing for me. I want it to get the extra nutrition from veggies that I don't normally eat or enjoy.

I plan to get a few different things from the grocery store in the next few weeks, including parsnips and beets. I will, for now, continue to add one to two pieces of fruit to my juice until I can tolerate the greens on their own. I don't think I'm getting TOO much sugar out of it if I'm just having a small glass of juice and in the long run, I'm getting a lot of nutritional value that I wouldn't have otherwise.

 If you juice, what is your favorite combination? 

And in case you're wondering, I did not hit my magical GOAL number for weigh in this week. :( I gained 1lb because I took the weekend off from counting points and working out. My mom was in town and that is my cue to go out to eat, enjoy and indulge :-) I deserve those weekends once in awhile. Goal is waiting for me, hopefully next week!

I managed to make it to yoga this morning. I've talked Jen into taking a spin class with me tomorrow night. My hubby is going back too. Then I will have Pilates on Thursday and another spin class on Friday morning. I'm hoping that Mother's Day finds us with good weather so that we can go out for a family bike ride (with the little guy in the trailer and my big girl on her trail-behind bike attached to mine!)