Day 70

So I know that I don't usually post pics except for once a month. But I noticed the difference between the way this shirt wears now and the way it looked when I wore it for family pictures, so I thought I'd share.

Now on to this week. I did pretty good this week until yesterday. Tuesday was weigh in day and group day. Going into this I needed 2 1/2 lbs. to lose so I was at 30 lbs. lost. I had dropped 2 lbs when I weighed in and was really excited that by Friday I should be at the 30 lb. mark. I really enjoyed this week's group too. It was on the hormone cortisol and how it really is a bad thing. It's triggered by negative thoughts, fight or flight incidents and things like that where our adrenaline gets going, then it likes to trap fat around our middles. So I've been working on positive thoughts so that I'm not combating more negatives than I really need to.

I shared last week that Jerry and I have been struggling with our marital relationship. So this week has been somewhat of a struggle again. I have felt like the harder I am trying to focus on God and what he wants for our marriage, the harder the enemy is working on trying to get a foot hold on this marriage and family.

I had started talking with Christine about specifics that were bothering me and Jerry has been working with one of the pastors from church. We are planning on meeting with him to work through the areas that seem to be the hardest to get lined up with God. Jerry recently took over control of the finances and that's been a hard one for me, but there has also been freedom in not having those worries. Friday night started a weekend of worship services with church because it was our annual family meetings for church. I went to weigh in before the service and was bummed, but otherwise thought I was ok with the fact that it showed a 1/2 lb. gain. I'm not sure where it came from and wanted to blame it on a plateau, but I truly was ok. I just walked out of Metabolic saying stupid scale. LOL!

Then the service we had was so freeing! One of the areas Jerry and I have been struggling in is an offering that we were giving to the church. We know that God told us the amount we were to give, but as soon as Jerry's settlement money got here, we both started questioning if that was right or not. We went back and forth for awhile, but then said it's what God wanted us to do, we need to do it. The bible is very clear that God states he will bless us and will never forsake us, so what are we afraid of? Why are we afraid of not having enough? So Friday night was the night we were to give the offering and since Jerry was an usher he gave me the check to put in. I prayed over that check and as I did, I could feel God breaking away all the things inside of me that I'd been struggling with the last 2 weeks. My worship time after that was wonderful!!

When we left, everyone was hungry except me because Jerry had brought my supper to eat, but they didn't have enough time to run through a drive-thru for them on their way into town. So Jessica went with me and we ran through Wendy's for her and then I had to run to Hy-Vee to get some items to make cookies and my own diet foods. I found out Friday night that we were co-leaders of a group for church, and the funny thing was I didn't find out from Jerry or from the pastor that we are co-leaders with. I found out from my old neighbor as she had gone and looked at what groups were available to sign up for. That was definitely interesting to say the least.

So we get home, get to bed and Saturday we have basketball for Jimmy, volleyball practice for Jessica and I've got things to get done at home and errands to run before being back for services at 5:00. Jerry took Jimmy to the game and I took Jess to practice. I ate breakfast and had been craving strawberry jam, so I looked at the back of the container to see what the calorie content was and it said 50 calories for 1 tbsp. I only had 1 or 2 tsp. on the piece of toast. That really did satisfy that craving. After dropping Jessica off I came back home to work out. I got a great workout in and then started to make cookies for our table. I was making valentines cookies that were peanut butter cookies with butterfinger hearts on top of them. I was taking tastes of the peanut butter even though I knew I shouldn't be. After the cookies were done, I had burned a few and asked Jerry if there were less calories in burnt cookies. LOL! He said, yes, cause I won't eat them. So I ate one and it tasted good enough that I went to eat another one and Jerry grabbed 1/2 of it out of my mouth. I laughed as he was kicking me out of the kitchen. I had also made some mashed potatoes for Jimmy because he broke his nose at his basketball game and needed soft foods to eat. Well I decided to have a minor temper tantrum because I wasn't getting help in the kitchen and I was being tempted with all the foods I was making. So I took a handful of mashed potatoes and put them in my mouth. Jimmy asked if they tasted good and I said yes. Jerry said and that's supposed to be my fault? I said, no! One of the ladies at church got a laugh out of it when I shared with her.

So we got that done and got to running our errands. One of them was that we needed to stop at Alltel because Jessica's phone wasn't working right. She was having problems with certain keys on her phone. I didn't go in because I was working on wedding stuff and trying to get bridesmaid dresses ordered when Jessica came outside to tell me that she needed me to come back in because Alltel was saying she didn't have a contract and dad wanted to get a blackberry. So I go in and explained to the customer service rep that both the kids lines should be in the middle of a 2 yr. contract because we had just gotten them new phones in September. She said that the computer didn't reflect that so we didn't need to worry, and that Jessica could get a new phone. Then Jerry shows me how he wants a blackberry and how much the plan would cost going forward if he got one. The benefits would be that we would have unlimited texting and still be able to have our nights and weekends at 7:00 but our bill would go up $50/mo. I didn't think that was too wise, and Jerry said ok, so then we just had Jess pick out another phone. Since it wasn't under contract, I believe this was the first way that God is blessing us with our faithfulness the night before in our offering. We saved $200 - $250 on this phone. Right now it's $200, but I have a $50 rebate to send in. I'm not sure if it will be honored or not because we had already submitted the same rebate for the same phone and number for Jessica back in September. But hey, if God can bless us with the computers not properly showing the kids should be under contract, then who am I to put God in a box and say that the $50 rebate isn't going to be honored.

We went to church, had another magnificent evening worshipping and praising. I should back up though, when I was snacking on things I shouldn't have been earlier in the day I told Jerry that I really just wanted to binge this weekend and eat all the things I haven't been able to and then go back on program on Monday. He said why blow a whole weekend. Why not just pick a meal and we can go to Tico's (I love this man in wanting to take me to a Mexican restaurant) and then get back on program the next meal. So while working our group table with him I asked if he really was going to take me to Tico's. He said yes, and I was so happy. I had even figured out what I was going to eat and how I was going to try and eat smaller portions of the items I wanted, but still get those flavors in my mouth. So we went after church and it all tasted so good! Then came this morning. Holy Cow! I had the biggest headache that I've had in a long while. Jerry got up to get me ibuprofen at 6:00 and then he ran Jess to her ride for her VB tournaments so we could go to church. I was miserable until I got back to sleep and then I felt great at 9:30 when I woke up. I told Jerry that while I wouldn't do that on a regular basis, I definitely wouldn't feel bad for having a meal like that every 3 or 4 months. He agreed that wouldn't be a bad thing to do. We went to church and then went to Hy-Vee for lunch because they have everything I can have to eat on their salad bar. Sadly, this time I didn't stick to that. I made a little bit of nachos because that mexican craving was still kicking my backside. I also had some puddings and Jerry just looked at me, laughed and said are you trying to tip the scales the wrong direction on your weigh in? I said, no but I'm done after this. So be praying for me because it seems that I'm not feeling bad for making the choices I am, and I need to get back on track. I would love to blame it on a very busy schedule this weekend, but I need to take responsibility for my choices no matter what area of my life it's in.

I know that I can do better this week and I may have sacrificed some pounds, I'm pretty sure that I'll get them off and work that much harder to make sure that I'm kicking those cravings in the backside. I hope you all have a great week and that next week I'll more positive, less cheating to share!! I need to remember that I still have a goal to attain and by cheating, I won't get there as fast as I want to.

Day 63

Well it's been 2 weeks since I've posted and it's my understanding there are some of you out there waiting to hear what I've got to say. I've done ok, but have had some moments of weakness including tonight as we are watching the Super Bowl.

Last weekend we went to Sioux Falls to do some wedding shopping with Danielle. I had taken what I thought I would need in order to get through the day and not cheat. We thought we were going to be home for supper so I only took enough supplements and food that's not offered in a restaurant to get through snack time. Well we ended up in Sioux Falls through supper and I was upset about not having my supplement or melba toast. But Jerry & Katie helped me to find items on the menu to stick with the plan and just be short on the grain. I could tell on our drive home though that I hadn't gotten my supplement because I was hungry between 8:30 and 9:00 and that's not normal.

At lunch I had gone to a restaurant called Johnny Carino's. It's Danielle's favorite restaurant and since she doesn't get there very often I told her it was fine to eat there. It's an italian restaurant and extremely hard to order something that would be within the diet. I ended up deciding to order part of a couples meal where Jerry and I both got to have a salad/soup, main entree and a mini dessert. So I figured no biggie, I'd just give the dessert to someone else at the table. I got a caeser salad and made sure the dressing and croutons weren't on it. Then I ended up ordering chicken fettucine alfredo. I figured I'd just take the chicken off if it and leave the sauce and pasta for someone else to take home. Well when the entree came I only had one piece of chicken on it. I thought that's really cheap, but the other girl who ordered the same thing didn't look like she had very much chicken either. Then Danielle's came and there was tons of chicken on hers. So I told the waiter about mine and she brought me a bunch more chicken, after Jerry had given me his. She brought it covered in alfredo sauce. I didn't think to say that I didn't want the sauce. So I scraped it off and ate it. Then when it was time for dessert, I was trying to offer it to Sara (Ross's sister) but she wanted something different and could only get it in the big dessert. So I said just bring me the mini cheesecake, and I figured someone would eat it. Well it sat in front of me for 10 minutes and then I decided to try it. Danielle was laughing because I ate it all. It was only 4 bites and I figured I'd get rid of it in all the walking that we were going to do that afternoon.

So as we started into last week, there were lots of things emotionally going on for Jerry and I which was causing lots of stress. So on Tuesday night instead of going and weighing in and taking the class. I met with my new mentor from church who is helping me working on being the woman that God has designed me to be. She is helping me to learn to focus on me and the changes God wants me to do instead of focusing on Jerry and the changes God (or maybe I should say that I) want to see in him. That was so helpful, but at the same time the rest of the week has been stressful to know how much I open my mouth on things that I shouldn't. That night I went to Wal-Mart picked up Fireproof and the Love Dare book. I started doing the Love Dare and reading the Power of a Praying Wife in order to help me keep the focus where it needs to be.

Wednesday night I went and weighed in. I was so excited to see that I had dropped 2 lbs. which put me at 2 1/2 lbs until I'm at 30 lbs lost. I was excited to tell Jeanne (the consultant) that Saturday I'd be back in to get measured since it's 2 months that I've been doing the diet. So I got through the rest of the week and yesterday was excited to get in and be measured and weighed after I worked out. I got in there and haven't weighed in on a Saturday before. Holy cow, it was so busy. But I finally got in and Tiffany (the consultant) measured me and I've lost 13.25 inches across my entire body. But when I got on the scale, there wasn't any change in my weight. Tiff said it's ok, it's only been a few days since your last weigh in and at least there wasn't a gain. I'm hoping that I'll have the 2 1/2 lbs. lost at the next weigh in on Tuesday.

Now on to tonight, I've been craving Mexican food really bad all day long. So in order to get rid of the craving I ended up opening a box of spicy queso and cheddar blanco cheez it's and ate a serving. They were really good, but Christine and I were making stuff for dinner and I said, it didn't take away the craving totally, I wanted to keep eating more. I didn't though. I fixed my dinner, ate it and now I'm full. I'm just hoping that it doesn't set me back any since it could set me back 3 days.

I'm quite thankful that I've done really good at excercising every day since Thursday. I was trying to work out at night and that was hard a few nights this week, but Friday morning I got up and just did a 15 minute workout before work, and that felt great. I was also thankful to have gotten it in because we ended up going to dinner with friends while the kids were at youth group, so I didn't get a chance to finish my workout after work. That was a great feeling too. Most of my closest friends and their husbands went to Grisanti's with us Friday night. I was able to follow my meal and not cheat. It felt great to not pick up the butter soaked bread. I thought I was going to struggle with not getting the salad, but I did just fine. Jerry ate the pasta from my meal and I put the chicken and broccoli on a bread plate and felt great not being stuffed and feeling nauseated leaving there. That I'm pretty sure is a first for me.

So now on to my 10th week of the diet and we'll see where the scale will land. Christine and I were talking about our Valentine's Day plans and decided that we don't want to eat out and it sounds like another friend of ours doesn't have a babysitter for that night so we are going to just go dancing that night (what great excercise). Danielle, Ross, Mackennzie and Danielle's friend Katie (whom we've pretty much adopted) and her boyfriend Anthony will be here to celebrate the evening with us after we do some more wedding shopping in Omaha. So I'm looking forward to that weekend. It will be a lot of fun, and maybe some pounds will be shed with all the excercising that will be done.

I've attached a picture so everyone will have to tell me if you can see a difference or not. I'm not totally sure, but I think it may be because I'm looking at myself every day. Have a great week everyone!!