Baby Steps

Well I made it through the first week with out any huge "obstacles". I am down 5.2lbs since last Monday. I did very little exercise but I did track all of my food. Even the small pieces of fried chicken & french fries that I snatched from the little ones plate last night. It wasn't much but it went in mouth so it went on my tracker too. My plan for this week is...one day at a time. Right now I know that I am not mentally ready to commit to anything huge. So I will take this journey one day at a time until I am there. I know that if I set something huge for myself and I fail that could be the end of this journey for me.

The little one and I will head to the grocery store tonight for this weeks needed items so that will make my food choices easier this week. Being prepared is key to success. I know this to be a huge factor in this journey from the last time I did it. If the weather gets better this week I am hoping to start the C25K again. I think this will be a good idea that I can include the little one in on as well. She's not a runner naturally and actually looks like a duck when she does but hey it will be time we can spend together and since she can probably run longer than me it will be fun for her to pick on me.

Anyways, this is how I am starting off this week and well see how it goes.

One day at a time.

.....

It was a good week but I'm tired and just want to sleep. I'm sure it's from the change in foods this week though. Honestly today and yesterday have been hard for me. Not with my food choices but I miss my girls. My little one will be home Sunday but it feels like she's been gone forever and my oldest, we'll she won't be home with me on Sunday. I know one day she will see how her choices have effected me but it still hurts me now. I have to be strong and just know that I have given her the tools she needs but it's up to her to use them. I'm gonna enjoy my bubble bath and call it a night early. 

One day at a time 

One day at a time

Today is my second day of tracking my food and making a conscious decision about what I put in my body. I know it won't happen over night so I have to be faithful and take it one day at a time. I wanted to go for a walk last night but I was just exhausted when I got home so I didn't. Excuses. Yeah I know. I did however do squats and jump roped while I steamed veggies in the kitchen. Lame I know but it's a start. It was beautiful out today so I got home changed clothes and went to the park for a 30 minute walk. I have to say I love the homey feeling of our little neighborhood. The park was full of families, joggers, cyclers and of course happy kids enjoying spring break. It made me miss the girls but I also appreciated the calmness of it and the alone time. I ran across this little guy along the trail. 

One day at a time is what I will keep telling myself.

The Up's & Down's

I have stared at this blank screen for a while now trying to decide where to begin and I’m still not sure so I will start from my last post.

June 22, 2012. I was going places on my journey. I had no idea I would be here at this moment.

July 2012 began what would be my 2^nd divorce. The girls and I packed up and moved back to the DFW metroplex where we would be close to family again. We found a little rent house, the girls were signed up for school and I found a new job that was great but still didn’t make ends meet being a single mom. I picked up a 2^nd job waitressing on weekends and 2 nights a week. Thankfully I had family that lived across the street and they were able to help with the girls when I was working. I had a close circle of family and friends that got me through this time. I worked out or made good food choices every now and then but not faithfully.

April 2013, I met a man that would change me in more ways than I could imagine. He wasn’t my usual type at ALL. He was 12 years older, salt & pepper hair and a drummer in a metal band but I took a chance. It was one of the best chances I have ever taken. He has shown me what it’s like for a man to love me. Not what I can give, how clean the house is, what I cook for dinner, how I look, my weight or my past, but me.

May 2013, my oldest daughter decided she wanted to live with her dad. This was hard for me to say yes to but I did. She has been my right hand since she was born but I understood her desire to have a better relationship with her dad and who was I to prevent her from trying.

July 2013, our lease was about to be up on the rent house and we had everything laid out to move to Plano in August. I put the deposit down on our new place, started packing, hired the movers and started getting everything laid out.

August 2013, my guy asks us to move in with him. Crazy I know. It took me a while to make a decision. This meant I would be giving up my stuff and fitting into his home. For me this is what was hard. Not, would it work or would we be happy. That I knew was possible. My “stuff” had been my security for so long I wasn’t sure I could let go of it. Through 2 marriages and divorces I always had my “stuff” when I had to put the pieces back together again. I realized if I wanted this to be different then maybe I needed to be different. “Stuff” is just stuff and I want to have “stuff” that is ours, not mine and not his, but ours. So I did it. I gave away most of my “stuff” and the little one and I moved in with him.

November 2013, I was offered a better job with a construction company as the regional accounting admin and made the move. It feels like home and I love that feeling.

March 2014, I have been on an emotional rollercoaster. I haven’t seen my oldest daughter for more than an hour or so at a time since July 2013. Honestly it’s more than I have in me right now to talk about but it breaks my heart. I don’t understand it. I haven’t figured out how to deal with it or fix it. I am a fixer and this one I haven’t been able to fix. I have done what I do in times of depression. I have put on weight. I am up 21 pounds since the last time I wrote here. That bothers me in many ways. I really thought I had my emotional eating figured out and under control. I was wrong. I sometimes feel like all the things I learned while I was blogging in the past were like a dream and they never really happened.

This is where I am and this is where I am starting from again. I don’t want to be skinny, skinny doesn’t mean happy. I don’t want a perfect figure, perfect figures don’t mean happy. I just want to be a happy healthy me and this is just where I will document the ups and downs of the journey. 

Q&A Time

I posted a while back on That Picture is what you really look like if there was anything that you wanted to know or just hear my opinions on. So after forever and a day I have finally sat down and gotten my A's together.

Q~How has your family adjusted to this new lifestyle?

A~They have been pretty supportive. For the most part I have only changed small things for them but I am trying to make overall better decisions for the girls. The girls see me making better choices and the great results from those choices and they are really interested in how and what I am doing. They go to the gym with me and see me work hard and also see me prep my foods on Sunday. This is about more than getting "fit" or healthy, this is about me teaching my girls to be the best they can be to serve God. Whether that is in the choices they make with food, fitness, emotional or spiritual. I am the one that God has appointed to lead, guide and direct them in this life and I am taking that job to a new level. 

Q~What is your typical menu look like?

A~I have posted a few different places about this you can read here and here. You can also follow me here to see my daily food diary. Username:jamieplayer 

Here is another useful tool that I have utilized from Little b's Blog. This grocery list gives you a great idea of how and what to buy to eat clean. 

Q~What does your playlist look like for workout's?

A~I have been kind of bored with my playlist so I have asked friends for new music ideas but haven't found much new music that I like. So here are some of the songs that I burn to on a regular basis.. :) I hit shuffle and I am good to go with any of these songs. 

Call Me Maybe-Carly Rae Jepsen

Country Girl-Gwyneth Paltrow

Country Strong-Luke Bryan

Dont you wanna stay-Jason Aldean

Dynamite-Taio Cruz

Footloose-Kenny Loggins

Forget you-Glee Version

Free To Be Me-Francesca Battistelli

Her Man-Gary Allan

Home-Blake Shelton

Honey Bee-Blake Shelton

Joey-Sugarland

I am a Good Girl-Christina Aquilera

If I Die Young-The Band Perry

It Just Comes Natural-George Strait

Low-Flo Rida

Mean-Taylor Swift

Need You Now-Lady A

Party in the USA-Miley Cyrus

Rockstar-Rihanna

Sexy and I Know It-LMFAO

Show Me How You Burlesque-Christina Aquilera

Someone Like You-Adele

Strawberry Wine-Deana Carter

Stronger-Mandisa

The Beautiful People-Christina Aquilera

The Climb-Miley Cyrus

The One-Gary Allan

What Makes You Beautiful-One Direction

Do you have any Q's for me? What's on your playlist? How has your family adjusted to your new lifestyle?

Jamie

My ABC's & 123's

Please excuse my temporary lapse in sanity over the last week as I believe a crazy, uncontrolled, hormonal monster took over me.

I feel almost 100% better today and I am ready to kick butt and take names later! You get the point right??

Plan A-Counting Calories & LOTS of cardio worked great but needed a change.
Plan B-LiveFit trainer worked great also but was way to restrictive and demanding for my lifestyle at this point in the game.

Good thing I still have 24 options left!

Plan C-Balanced CLEAN eating while still tracking my food with MFP along with 3 days of Turbo Fire at home and 2 days of heavy weight training in the gym. I am going to take the information that I got from the LiveFit Trainer and create a balanced weight program that will hit each muscle group. 


With the LiveFit trainer you are focusing on one or two muscle groups a day and there are several different workouts for each day. I am going to take the workouts for each muscle group that are the most beneficial overall and have 2 days of weight training with them. Once I get this tweaked a little more I will share it with you guys also. 


I wont go into the details of what I have ate the last 7 days but just know that it wasn't pretty. What did I gain from you might ask, well let me tell you.

1. Oily face and dry, rough skin
2. Breakouts
3. Tummy aches
4. Bloating
5. Fatigue
6. Overall felling of YUCK!
7. The Scale-I have no idea what this damage is and I will not be back on the scale for at least 2 weeks.

All of these things are really not worth the food that I ate. I know that I felt good when eating clean and I am going back to it! If it aint broke don't fix it!

Anyone else fall off the wagon and having trouble dragging yourself back on it? What encourages you to keep going?

Jamie

Loosing It...

I may or may not be having a meltdown. Let me rewind a few days to get the whole picture. Thursday night Maycey asked if we could get a frozen yogurt on the way home from the gym and I decided we would since I haven't had one in 6-8 weeks. Friday was my birthday, I ate great and went to the gym like any other day. Oh yeah, except Sarah and I took the kids to IHOP at 9:30 for a little late night excursion. I had the Simple Fit meal but did add a little syrup to my pancakes. Saturday started off good and then went down hill from there. I was fine with it though because I have really done good and I made the choice to have unclean foods for lunch and the best Starbucks drink ever for an afternoon pick me up while shopping. I'm not sure exactly when it happened but I just took a downward turn mentally later that night. I picked up a few things from Walmart on the way home at 9:30 and decided I was also going to have a theater box of raisinets. Really, a whole box! Jon comes in the bathroom while I am soaking in the bath enjoying my raisinets and questions me about them. I then tell him they are mine and I was gonna eat them all because I wanted to. Really? Who was this person that had invaded my mind? Then after I get in bed and we put on a movie I decide that I am going to eat the m&m's that are in the cabinet. I finally passed out (probably from a sugar coma) around 1:15 thankfully, otherwise I may have went and looked for more candy. Sunday was a new day and I was going to get control of things. NOT....well half not anyways. I wanted coffee on the way to church and I didn't have anything besides sweet-n-low or sugar to sweeten it with so I choose the sugar since the other makes me bloat so bad. We dropped Jon and Maycey off after church and went straight to the grocery store for the weekly list. You may not have noticed but there was no food mentioned up until this point yet and now I am starving. I am able to withstand the hunger until we get to the checkout and then I have Maddy run and get me a Luna bar (that was ate in like 3.5 seconds). The rest of the day was pretty relaxing and I made myself a banana cream protein shake to enjoy while I watched a movie. I knew I was short on patience and I was irritable so I decided to head to the gym and take some of it out on the treadmill. This was great but I still didn't feel back to myself or like I had control. I will spare you the details on my meltdown yesterday morning at my husband because MY hair didn't look good and on the incident with my pre-teen last night. After putting it all together it dawned on me that most of it is PMS and I have a really big opportunity this week that has me on edge. My family may be ready to ship me off to the crazy farm before it is over.

How will I make it through this week? With lots of prayer and because I know this too shall pass. My God is big and he already has this all worked out. So when I start to stress or worry I have to remind myself that its already decided and I will not be this emotional in a few days.

I did weights on Friday but skipped Saturday and Sunday lifting. I did do 30 mins of cardio on Sunday and I enjoyed it. I haven't decided if I am going to lift tonight or just take a few days off and just do cardio. After putting all of this down here I am thinking it may also be my body telling me it needs a break. The is not a sprint and I don't have a deadline so its not going to kill me if I back off a little bit.

Thoughts, opinions, advice on how my last few days has been??

Jamie

I'm still the same me

Over the last 6 months I have learned a lot about myself and the way I look at things. Some of this learning was a lot a little painful but I knew that it had to be done.

I heard this quote once and it has really stuck with me, "When the fear of staying the same is greater than the fear of changing, your ready to change."

To some people I may have changed on the outside but I am still me on the inside. I have actually become a better person on the inside because I am happy within myself. When you get to a point in your life when your unhappy all the time its time to take a look at your self. There wasn't a secret way that I did it, I just ask God daily to give me the strength to be the woman that He intended for me to be. Every day is a struggle for me but I know that I have the strength of the Lord to walk in front of me on this journey.

I have had people that I call friends back off from our friendship because of the changes that I have been making. Its hurtful when I see this happening but I know that I can only try to show them love no matter what. I have tried really hard not to talk my lifestyle to death with others that are not interested and I have never judged any person because of their weight. I was just thinking that if all my friends were blind they wouldn't even know that I have lost weight and would treat me the same as before I started this lifestyle. Just think about that for a bit.

I guess the whole point I am trying to make here is that just because someone is changing or different on the outside doesn't mean they are not the same person on the inside. I am still the same girl I was 6 months ago, just a better, healthier and happier version.

The old saying of "Don't judge a book by its cover" comes to mind and it couldn't be truer. I still have a lot of the same problems that most people have, I am just better equipped to deal with them than I was before.

Have you dealt with anything like this in your life? How did you handle it?

Jamie

Phase 1 Review

I completed Phase 1 of the Livefit Trainer that I told you guys about here and I loved it!

Nutrition-The biggest key to success is preparation and I cant say this enough. If I would not have had all of my foods readily available it would have been really hard. I generally take a few hours on Sunday afternoon and get everything cooked and portioned out for the week. I keep clean food in the fridge at work and home to keep me on track. When we went on vacation, I packed 4 days worth of food that I had pre-made for myself. On the few occasions we went out to eat, I requested my food to be grilled dry and me veggies steamed. I drank LOTS of water and green tea daily. I also took my vitamins & supplements daily. I would say my eating was 98% clean and what wasn't was sugar free products. This has made me so much more aware of what is going in my body as well as how much CRAP is in our food. I am constantly amazed when I read the packages now days and I have tried really hard to make the switch for my family where I can as well.

Fitness-I am now a beast, ok not really but I can pretend. I am lifting 15-30lbs more than I was at the beginning. I was able to bust out 3 sets of 10 assisted pull ups yesterday for Phase 2 day 1 and let me tell you that has NEVER happened. I couldn't even do those in high school. I feel so comfortable back in the free weight section now and the guys don't really bother me. They kind of work around me actually. I have had a few ladies approach and ask what plan I am following and ask for advice on how to do certain machines. I actually have a little bump in my biceps and my butt has lifted. My thighs are more solid now than ever and my calves, well they rock. I think they look like man calves but Jon & Sarah keep telling me they are great and will be a great asset when I lean down. Well see about that though.

With all of that said my overall loss for Phase 1 is as follows:

-17.1 inches, -1.6lbs & -3% body fat

This was with 4 weeks of heavy lifting, clean eating and NO CARDIO!

On to Phase 2 now and I am adding back in cardio so the fat should be melting away now.

Jamie

Package Pen Pal Reveal & June PPP

Before we talk about next months PPP let me share with you what I received from my awesome PPP Terri in May!

This is the coolest water bottle ever and I can always use more Bath & Body!
The snacks were the bomb diggity!! The Planters nuts were my favorite and I think I could eat my weight in them. :)   The card was my favorite part overall though and it even made me cry.

Thanks a million Terri, you are such an encouragement to me and give me strength even when you don't know it.


Ok, so for those of you that are interested in taking part of PPP for the month of June this is for you!

Its time to start thinking about the June Package Pen Pals-PPP. If you are interested in joining please email me at faithmomma.jp@gmail.com with the information requested below. If you are new and wondering what the heck I am talking about you can read about how PPP got started here. I have connected with many of you through my facebook page and it has been great. I would love for more of us to get connected and help each other out. Please let me know by June 4th if you would like to participate so that I can get every ones information together and pair everyone up. 

When I get all the info back, you will receive your PPP pairing via email. I will send you some info that I have gathered from your PPP but you are welcome to contact your PPP for any additional info you may want or need.

You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. No later than the last day of the month, you will need to post about the goodies you received from your PPP and be sure to add a link back to your PPP (blog or facebook).

The boxes should be filled with a variety of items ($15 limit). Such as fun healthy items(snacks, dressings, spreads, desserts, oats, chips, what ever you come up) that you have found and enjoyed,  local food items, bath products, books, candles, trinkets, homemade items, etc. This should be something that will encourage your PPP to continue on her healthy lifestyle and to also be a treat for her. I am sure I am not the only one that wants things to be just for me on occasion. It would be great if you could also have a handwritten note, card, scripture or recipe included in the package. Be creative with this and have fun with it!

Each PPP is responsible for shipping the items in the best possible way. Flat rate boxes may be a great way to go depending on what you are sending.

This is the information that I would like to get from each of you to share with your PPP and give them an idea of your likes and interests.

Full name & mailing address

Email address

Your blog or facebook name/address

What plan are you following in your healthy lifestyle?

Favorite type of food

Allergies or food limitations

Favorite store

Favorite item to collect

Tea or Coffee-flavor or no flavor

Favorite book

Favorite author

Favorite scripture verse

"God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others." 2 Corinthians 9:8

Jamie