Life

We moved a couple times since the last time that I wrote but now we're settled in our new house in our new town. My last weigh in was 148.6, yesterday morning. So I've lost a lot of weight but still not at my goal weight. It's not seeming to come off as easy this time around. My life is way more stressful. I'm having a hard time balancing trying to make everyone happy and trying to take care of myself. Of course I just end up not taking care of myself and no one understands why I'm a train wreck. My husband said that we need to set aside 30 mins a day for each of us to do what makes us happy. So he went outside while I bathed the kids and got them ready for bed. He watched the baby for 20 minutes while it was MY "time" to do what I wanted to do. (I'm writing a novel for nanowrimo and it's nearly impossible to find the time)  so after 20 minutes he came storming into the room and said I had been in the bedroom for HOURS and it's RIDICULOUS. I know it was only 20 minutes because I started a sesame Street episode for our 4 year old while I brushed her hair. Each episode is only 26 minutes so it took me about 5 or 6 to untangle her hair and then I started writing. Right when the episode ended he came barreling in.
I just needed to rant that because it's a prime example of why I'm so stressed and even depressed from time to time. It doesn't help to cry so I've stopped doing that.
I just put the 1 year old to bed and am hiding in his dark room for time to myself. All I want to do is fill up on chocolate. Hopefully I can control myself but it helps me emotionally.
Weight loss challenges, life challenges.

Moving

I haven't posted in a couple months. We've been in the process of moving!!
I did slip a lot in the diet department as we were getting take out just about every night but the past few days I've been cracking down more than ever!
I'm happy to weigh in at 165.8!
I've also been going on daily walks now that I'm in a safe neighborhood and it's awesome! I'm so happy to be able to venture outside of my house.
We have a busy weekend ahead and I'm exhausted but I did want to check in to say I'm doing great!!!

Friday of week 4

Weighed myself midweek and I am down to 166.8! I feel really great about that because the weight hasn't really started coming off until this point.
I've been trying to eat better and stick to the workout schedule.
Today I did a mommy and baby workout video on YouTube. It was basically light cardio moves while holding the baby and using him as a 20 lb weight haha.
It was a good workout. I have to do tiu mermaid, total body workout. Can be found both on toneitup.com and youtube.
Hoping for some inches lost on Sunday when I take my measurements.

Planning a girls getaway for my friends birthday. So I'm excited about that and kind of focusing on that to motivate me to drop some more lbs!

Week 4. Love your body.

This past week I've mostly seen progress in my legs. I'm down 2.4 lbs in 3 weeks which really isn't as much as I was hoping for but it's better than a gain! Plus I know I've lost inches which is important.
I've booked my summer vacation for the east coast in July so I hope to be bathing suit ready by then.

Today's fitness routine will focus on the abs and booty. I can feel that I'm stronger than when the challenge first started which is encouraging.
I can probably be around 140 lbs by vacation if I lose a pound a week.
It seemed so much easier to lose weight after my first. Looking back at my old posts it seems like I was losing a bit of weight almost every day! I'm definitely not having that luck this time. I'm not sure if it's because I'm doing things differently or because I'm 3 years older.

It's hard looking back at how far I came and knowing I've lost all that progress. It's a negative way to look at it and I know I can get back to where I was but it's hard some days. I look in the mirror and squeeze into my biggest sizes.
Yes, I had a baby.. yes, I worked out during my pregnancy and craved fruits and salads. Maybe it's the lack of sleep. I know sleep deprivation can halt progress and most nights I'm lucky if I get 5 hours. It's been this way for over 6 months.

I need to drink more water. I need to eat the healthiest possible and I need to power through my workouts. That's all I can control until the option to sleep is available to me. It's all worth it.

Back at it after baby #2

I haven't posted in a long time and a lot has happened. I got married in September of 2014. Things have been going pretty well with that. My husband and I have our ups and downs but he's grown greatly from when I first started this blog! I was able to not only get back to 130 lbs before my wedding but I was also very fit! I actually fit into my size 5 shorts that I hadn't worn in about 10 years. Nobody thought I'd be able to do it which made it that much more gratifying when it actually happened!
How did I do it?
No gimmicks. I joined an online community called Tone It Up. It's free unless you want the nutrition plan, which I did, so I bought it. I ended up buying more of their merchandise as I fell in love with the group, trainers, workouts, all of it!
More about that later.

So, why am I back to my weight loss blog? Baby #2 happened. I had our son in July of 2015 and ended up weighing back up around 190lbs!! You can imagine how that felt after working so hard to get where I was. My son's almost 6 months old now and I've mostly focused on nursing him with an occasional period of working out and counting calories. I learned that it's really hard to do the workouts I did in the summer of 2014 carrying the extra weight!

I'm currently in week 3 of another TIU challenge. At the start of the challenge I was about 170lbs. That's the amount of weight I was able to drop in about 5 months with the holidays and all.
I've only dropped a pound since the challenge started which really stinks because I've been doing all the workouts and eating healthier (not the healthiest but healthier). I weighed myself at the start of week 3 and was so bummed to see only a pound gone. I might have given up all together if it weren't for the measurements. Most of my body was remained about the same but I was down 3 inches in my torso!! I had to re-measure a few times to make sure that was correct. 3 inches!! No wraps, no diet pills, no gimmicks! I just followed the workout schedule and ate a little healthier.
Seeing that has given me motivation to work harder and eat better (with the weekly date night cheat MEAL.. no cheat days, just cheat meals).

So, starting all over again.. here I am at 169 lbs. My pant size is about 14. I nurse my (almost) 6 month old and workout 1 to 3 times daily. Today I've done a routine feom the TIU beach babe 3 dvd - coconut core & booty. The next routine, which I'll do after the baby wakes up, is kettlebooty. This workout you can find on youtube. You can find several tiu videos on YouTube! In fact, when I first joined the community I didn't have the dvds so I did the entire bikini series challenge from YouTube videos. All you have to do is find a video to substitute and there are more than plenty! Plus they come out with a new one every Tuesday so there's no shortage of free workouts!

My most recent purchase was a tiu yoga mat and foam roller. Not a necessity but pretty nice to have. I'm finally able to do floor routines with my bones grinding into the hardwood. I actually have come to love yoga. It helps with the stress of being home alone all day with a 3 year old and 6 month old. My hormones are still all over the place and it's hard to have the patience I need. Yoga helps tremendously! I can feel my body getting stronger each time I do it and it's a good stretch for the muscles after toning routines.

Also, I just ordered a water bottle from ogorgeous.com. it's a different organization but I love that written on the back is the time of day each amount of water should be drank by. Admittedly, I'm bad with my water intake. I probably get in 4 bottles of water a day which isn't that great when you're 169 lbs, exclusively breastfeeding and working out regularly. It may be why I haven't seen as much progress as I would have liked.

I eat 5 times a day. 3 meals, 2 snacks. Breakfast was a white chocolate macadamia clif bar and coffee with natural bliss coffee cream. So good and energizing! It pushed me through my 35 min long morning workout after the kids woke me up very early this morning. My recovery snack was a kiwi and half an apple with all natural peanut butter. For lunch I'm planning homemade lean chicken tacos on whole wheat wrap with diced tomato and Greek yogurt instead of sour cream. Haven't planned out my 2nd snack but tonight is date night so we're going out for pizza. I'll just have to be sure to portion it out!
I'll have to post my progress photo and measurements next time.