17 Day Diet

I know that I said I wasn't going to "diet".. but rather just start eating healthy. That was really harder than I had thought because I'll be honest, I don't know how to eat healthy. I thought I was eating healthy.. eating tons of fruit.. carrots.. cutting out junk.. but still allowing myself soda. Yet, I GAINED weight. It was frustrating. After researching, I decided to start the 17 Day Diet.

The 17 Day Diet can be summed up in one word. HARD. haha I thought it was going to be easy, but it's not (for me at least because of what I like!) It's broken down into cycles. The cycles are suppose to help with boredom and with plateauing. Each cycle is 17 days. The first cycle is to accelerate weight loss. The first three cycles are all different foods, and then the last cycle is "Maintenance". The first cycle, foods are very limited. You are allowed 2 servings of fruit (from a selected list) and have to eat them before 2pm. I found out from the book that bananas actually prevent weight loss. Bananas have always been my go to food when I'm trying to "diet". It blew me away that something I thought was helping me was actually preventing me! You are allowed 2 yogurts. Any that's fat free. I love Yoplait so I'm glad I could eat it and not like Greek Yogurt or some crap like that. You are allowed 2 eggs (with the yolks).. or endless egg whites. You get NO carbs and starches. You are allowed to eat as many veggies and protein as you want. I like salads, but the only veggies I can snack on is carrots.. so that's where my problem is. I get hungry usually in the afternoon and evening because carrots just don't curve hunger. You have to drink at least 64 ounces of water a day (which I get AT LEAST 72), plus a cup of green tea with every meal. I don't like green tea.. but I did find citrus green tea (cold) that I can manage to choke down lol. You have to get at least 17 minutes a day of some type of exercise in. I've been going back and forth between my biggest loser game and walking. Today I'm pretty sure I'm going to cheat and not exercise at all because Rosalie was up at 4:30 and I'm dead tired.

Let me sum up what I've had the past few days.

START DAY: SUNDAY.

Breakfast: 2 scrambled eggs (mind you, I HATE HATE HATE scrambled eggs. It's like eating rubber to me) + 1 c fruit (grapes) + green tea (which I HATED.. but after 4 days, it's growing on me)

I had the fruit when I got up and started getting hungry. Rosalie and I were up at 5, so it held me over until Kevin got up at 7. He always requests Sunday morning breakfast so I had my craptacular eggs while he had his delicious pancakes.

Mid Morning: 1 c strawberries

Lunch: Salad with lettuce, carrots, and hard boiled eggs (just the whites). + Green tea

Mid Afternoon: Yoplait Fat Free Yogurt

Dinner: chicken breast and and steamed mixed veggies. Now you aren't suppose to have corn on Cycle 1, but I do eat it with mixed veggies.

Exercise: 1 hour walk

Sum of the day: I was hungry, moody, irritable, and unbelievably tired.

DAY 2 MONDAY

Breakfast: 1 c of mixed fruit + yogurt + green tea. Again split up my fruit and yogurt

Mid morning: Apple

Lunch: Chicken and mixed veggies + Green tea

Mid Afternoon; Yogurt

Dinner: Chicken Salad + Green tea

Evening: carrots (hunger was taking over)

Exercise: 25 minutes of Biggest Loser work out

Sum of the day: THE HARDEST DAY!!!!!!!! I was soo hungry.. even more tired..

DAY 3 TUESDAY

Breakfast: 2 scrambled eggs + 1 c mixed fruit + green tea (Again, split up the fruit and eggs)

Mid morning: 1 c mixed fruit

Lunch: Chicken and veggies + Green tea

Mid Afternoon: Yogurt

Dinner: Buffalo chicken salad + green tea

Evening: Yogurt

Exercise: 1 hour walk

Sum of the day: Getting a heck of a lot easier.. but at dinner time, every time I tried to eat I got extremely nauseated so I ended up barely eating anything and by 7 I was starving.

DAY 4 TODAY

Breakfast: yogurt + 1 c mixed fruit + green tea (split again)

Mid Morning: 1 c grapes

Lunch: Buffalo chicken and mixed veggies + green tea

Mid Afternoon: haven't made it there yet.

Exercise: Opting out of it for today since I have been up since 4:30 with Rosalie

Total weight loss weighing in day 4 morning.. FOUR lbs! I'm 14 lbs away from being at my goal weight! If you're interested in the 17 Day Diet, google it and get more information. I bought the book in amazon (actually in kindle format) and it's a lot cheaper than buying it from the 17 Day Diet website!

A New Year. A New Me.

Last year I set a list of goals for myself that I can proudly say, I worked at, and bettered myself.

I wanted to lose 20 lbs.. and I did it before Kevin returned from his deployment. But, *le sigh*, within the past few months I managed to put 7 of those lbs back on. I started a new medication in May and when I started it, it seemed like no matter what I did I could not lose weight.. nor, could I gain it. With that being said, I gave up on trying to lose weight and figured since I wasn't gaining, I might as well enjoy it. A few months ago, my body apparently adjusted to this new medicine and I started gaining weight. I've had no motivation to take it off.

Another goal for last year was to start reading more. Well, I shouldn't say start.. but more or less get back into reading. I set a goal to read at least 1 new book a month. 2011 came to an end, and I have read about 50 new books! haha!

I wanted to start exercising more. I started off really strong until Rosalie and I went to the states. I've been on and off with my exercising and I'm disgusted with how I did this year. I've started off 2012 a lot better though!

Lastly, I wanted to get back in touch with old friends and rekindle our friendship to what it use to be. My two bestfriends and I are closer than we have been the past four years. I feel like a piece of my heart is back and I no longer feel empty and feel like I don't have anyone (other than my family of course!).

SO that brings us to this year. What do I plan to do this year?

I plan to better myself. First off, no more negativeness. I'm weeding the negative out of my life. Any people or feelings I have, are gone. I'm trying hard to be a very positive person.. I realize, what's the point of negativity? All it does is bring you down and the people around you.

I want to continue with my reading and continue my goal of 1 book a month just because I need that get-away. When I'm reading, it's just me. It's not for Rosalie. It's not for Kevin. It's not housework and it's not cooking. It's not laundry and it's not bows. It's about the most selfish thing I do! LOL! I don't need "alone" time. I can be sitting next to Roey on the couch with a book in my hand and for that time I get lost in my own world. A book is the break that I need!

Next, I want to work on my body, since I got the soul part covered with the negativeness and my mind covered with the reading. I plan to start eating better. No dieting. Just weeding the junk out of my life that I put into my body. So far I have cut out any means of junk food or candy. (Oh i'm like a 5 year old.. candy is my weakness). I have been keeping plenty of fresh fruit and veggies in the house so when I feel the need to snack. I feel great. I don't feel so tired all the time. I also have been religiously working out four days a week *gasp*. I asked for the Biggest Loser for the Kinect for Christmas and Kevin got it for me. It's intense. What I love best about is how it's structured. My trainer picks my workout every day. I do circuit training to work on the areas that they feel need the most work. It does a full body scan to show which areas need how much work. I feel like I'm getting wayyyy more from it than I ever did the wii! If you want to get serious about exercising, but aren't sure how to without going to the gym.. I def recommend buying it!

So that's it. A new me. That's all I want this year. hahah!

2011 was a pretty good year for us. We traveled.. A LOT. We went to Ireland.. Austria.. Germany.. Tuscany. We went to Venice (again), Venzone, and local places with my family. Seeing Ireland has always been a dream of mine. My family has such a strong Irish heritage and I'm really glad I got to visit where that heritage originated.

Ladybug Creations started. It's crazy how it began. I started making bows for Rosalie and before I knew it... they were selling like hotcakes. I have so many loyal customers that have made it all possible!

We made it through our first deployment. We came out stronger than ever!

2012 brings so many new changes for us as we venture back to America to begin our lives in Alabama! Prayers that the next few months go without glitches! I can't want to see what the new year has in store for us!

Growing Every Day

Our little peanut was just a hair shy of 3 ft at her last doctor's appt. I'm sure by now she has passed it because it seems she is outgrowing more and more clothes every day!

I just wanted to share this photo.. it is just amazing how much she has grown!

Shutterfly

I am, without a doubt, a Shutterfly junkie. I have ordered AT LEAST 30 photobooks and have about 15 in my account that I haven't ordered yet. I refuse to do prints anymore. Instead, I upload all my pictures to Shutterfly and save them for a rainy day and do a photobook. Photoboks are the new scrapbooks. All of your pictures are displayed in a cute way.. but you don't have the gluey mess.. the bulkiness.. the pictures don't eventually fall out.. and they aren't nearly as expensive as scrapbooking!

Here is a book that I did for my Mom from when they came to Italy to visit us.

Click here to view this photo book larger

Photo books are the perfect gift for any occasion.

The first time she came to visit us I made her books from our trips to Venice and Verona and then she printed the rest. This time she wanted all of her pics in one large book. With layouts Shutterfly has I was able to set it up like chapters!

Right now you can get a $10 credit from Shutterfly simply by blogging! Embed a project into your blog! Do this and send the link to shareproject@shutterfly.com and you will receive a $10 Shutterfly credit to use on any purchase $10.

Happy Photobooking!