Well hey guys! I’m just gonna say that Summer + Blogging does not mix well for me! Man. It’s just about impossible for me to find two quiet seconds to sit down and type these days.
We have had a great, but very, very busy summer! I’ve been absolutely loving summer, but I’m starting to feel ever so ready for school to start. It’s interesting how the kids start complaining and fighting a bit more the last few weeks of summer. They also seem to be “bored” more often. I’ve been telling them that those are all telltale signs that they are ready for school!
In all reality, school starting will be a good thing for all of us! It will be nice to be on a consistent schedule once again. I’m hoping I’ll be able to start tackling some projects around the house, get more things done and blog more often!!
Well, last weekend we went to a fun One Year Anniversary party at my gym, F45! There was cake, cookies, amazing BBQ food (ribs and pulled pork), a prize drawing and the Jazz Bear came to visit!
Guys, the Jazz Bear is so much fun! He is seriously an amazing mascot! He does so many incredible tricks and stunts at all the games and is just such a cool guy! When he showed up at our gym in his big Bear Truck (you can see it behind us in that pic), he came with sirens blaring and shot streamers out. Then he came up to Kev and I (and several other people) and sprayed silly string all over us.
You can also watch this funny video of him trying to feed cake to the people who were working out. Ha ha.
It was so much fun and my kids loved meeting him! He gave them all balls and signed pictures. It was a lot of fun! I love my gym!
We also took the kids to Lagoon, our local amusement park this week and had a ball! I ran around with my two littlest kids for a while and took some pics…
You can see my 7 year old in the airplane behind us. 🙂
We had such a fun day! Sadly, I didn’t take any pictures of my bigger kids or Kev! 🙁
I love Lagoon, I love amusement parks and I love summer!
********************
Well, my Oxygen Challenge is still going well! I’ve really, really loved it and have learned so much! Ya know, when I did this challenge a couple of years ago, I fizzled out halfway through. I think my life was hectic (that hasn’t changed!) and I got a little discouraged and overwhelmed when I couldn’t stick to it as well as I would have liked.
Sooooo, this year I promised myself that I would NOT quit! I knew I would have ups and downs (that’s life!), but I was determined to keep on going and keep on trying. I’ve definitely not been perfect; I’ve missed several workouts and haven’t always eaten 100% squeaky clean. However, whenever I’ve gotten off track, I’ve quickly just gotten right back on track.
It’s really been great and has taught me a lot about willpower, determination, commitment and balance. It’s really been a great lifestyle for me!
I always try to live a fairly healthy lifestyle, but I definitely have times when I’m more “on” and times when I go “way off” for a bit! I’m happy to say that throughout this challenge so far (8 1/2 weeks) I’ve never had a “way off” day! Woo hoo! I’ve never totally pigged out, I’ve stayed away from most treats and fast food and have made more of an effort to fill myself full of good clean food, lots of protein and lots of veggies!
I’ve also made more of an effort to not miss a workout and have added in more resistance training to the already amazing classes at my gym. It’s been great!
For some reason, I struggled quite a bit a few days last week! My appetite and cravings went way up and I found myself snitching little bites of treats here and there. Gah! I hadn’t had any “real treats” for 7 weeks and then I found myself eating a little bit of cake from the party at my gym, snitching little pieces of brownies up at my mom’s house and eating some candy I found stashed at my house. I didn’t eat a ton of anything, but I quickly sensed a downward trend. I knew it was just making it much easier for me to keep on tasting and trying more and more sugary foods!
Soooo, last Sunday night I told myself THAT IS IT! I committed to steer clear of it once again and I’m happy to say I’ve been back on track this week! Oh, and in my defense I realized I was hormonal last week. Ladies, hormones are no joke. I can always tell around that time of the month, I’m always more hungry and crave sugar! It can be quite intense at times too!
Soooo, when I realize that I’m actually dealing with hormonal issues, I try to cut myself a little bit of slack, eat a few more carbs and remember it will subside and my body will go back to “normal” very soon. I always seem to bloat up and gain a few pounds around that time too. Soooo, I’ve learned not to panic if I feel a little chubby for a few days too.
I’m happy my appetite and cravings are chilling once again.
I also want to say that weight loss is a very, very slow thing that requires a heckuva lot of patience and commitment! I’ve been working very, very hard for about two months now and although I’m seeing some results….it has been very slow! It’s a reminder to me that weight loss and healthy living is a journey and needs to be a lifelong commitment.
It’s also easy for me to see why most people give up or quit when trying to lose weight! It really does require a lot of consistency and hard work! It is so easy to get discouraged when you hit a plateau or the scale even goes up a pound or two! I just have to remind myself to make deliberate, healthy choices every single day and remember that over time they will add up to big, rewarding results that are SOOOOOO worth the sacrifice, blood, sweat and tears.
There really is nothing better than feeling energized, full of life, lighter, stronger, leaner and having your clothes fit the way you want them to. It really is such a fulfilling feeling!
Anyway, I could go on and on, but I’ll just sum it up by saying healthy living is worth it! Exercising and eating a healthy diet is so empowering and has a huge influence and positive effect on every other part of my life as well. It makes me a happier, more confident, harder working person and I love it!
**********************
I thought I’d share a few meals that I’ve been enjoying lately. I’ve been on a grilled chicken kick lately. I’ve been grilling up some chicken for dinner one night a week and then eating the leftovers throughout the week.
This time I made it with roasted green beans and some zucchini noodles with marinara. I made some chicken ravioli for the kids and I snagged one of them too!
I just have to mention something funny. My child #3 (pictured behind me in that picture) is a highly motivated, competitive, hard working and intense boy! All of my kids are so different and have seriously just been born the way they are! Anyway, if you look in the background of that picture you can see our summer job chart hanging on the wall.
I made that same chart last year and at the beginning of the summer this year, my #3 child told me that we needed to make it again! He took it upon himself to actually make the chart and he has been the most motivated “job doer” in our house by far! You probably can’t see it too well in this pic, but all the stickers you see in the middle of the chart….ya those are all his! Too funny!
My two biggest kids haven’t cared about the job chart at all. My littler boys have done a few things here and there, but that #3 child has been the KING of the jobs!
He’s actually a very helpful and hard worker, so I’ve been grateful. I just have to laugh at how competitive he is!
Anyway, here’s another pic of a grilled chicken dinner…
This time I made it with roasted asparagus and some baked fries. I had plans of making roasted potatoes instead of the fries, but they are quite time consuming so when I saw a bag of Trader Joe’s fries in my freezer, I called it good!
Here’s another grilled chicken meal…
On Tuesday nights, Kev and my big kids are always gone, so I always make an easy meal for them and when I get home from the gym I throw something random together for me! In this case I filled a bowl full of romaine and topped it with chicken and a little bit of low sugar BBQ sauce and light Ranch dressing. I also had a peach topped with cottage cheese on the side. Sooooo good!
Don’t look at my sons plate though…he had a hot dog (I think that’s what I fixed for the rest of the fam) and Cheetos! Gah. Such is life though…I have several picky eaters and I’m just happy when they eat somethin’! FYI, I try to feed my kids healthy foods and I offer fruits and veggies at most of our meals, but I don’t sweat it. We just go with the flow and run on “survival mode” most of the time.
Well it is late and I need to hit the hay. I will leave you with this beautiful picture of moldy bread….
You may recall, back in April I shared a picture of a little bread experiment my darling 9 year old brought home from Scouts. Around the beginning of March, he brought home a piece of bread that they had sprayed with water, rubbed their hands all over and put in a bag so they could watch mold grow.
The frightening thing is that NO MOLD ever grew on that bread! I finally threw it out a couple weeks ago….5+ months later! Here’s a picture of that bread from when he first brought it home (0n the left) and right before I threw it away a couple weeks ago (on the right.) It looked pretty much exactly the same!
Anyway, just for kicks I decided to do our own little experiment to see if mold would grow on the kind of bread that we use all the time at our house. I sprayed it with water, rubbed our hands all over it and put it in a bag.
Thankfully, it grew mold. In less than a week.
You can see on that bag that I started the experiment on May 28th and I first saw signs of mold on June 3rd! I kept the bread in that bag for a while to see what would happen. I finally had to double bag it because it started to stink and then I threw it away!
I hung onto the original piece of bread that my son brought home. It never grew mold. Isn’t that a little freaky!??! I don’t know what in the world was going on with it, but I’m guessing it has something to do with how highly processed it is and how many preservatives are in it!
I had to laugh though, about a month ago my 9 year old son came home from playing at one of his friend’s houses. He said, “Mom, while I was at his house they offered me a piece of bread.” “It looked just like the piece of bread from my Scout experiment, so I said No, thank you!” Too funny!
I think this would make an interesting Science Fair experiment sometime. Sooooo, heaven forbid, the next time one of my kids has to do a Science Fair thingy….I think we’ll try something like this!
Anyway, I hope you all enjoy the rest of your weekend!!! xoxo
GIRL YOU ARE 1000000% RIGHT – HORMONES ARE NO JOKE – Thankfully mine don’t really affect me from a hunger stand point (as I am always hungry) but my mood gets ALL WONKY and then my husband thinks he is the one causing me to be “sad” or INSERT EMOTION HERE – but it has ZERO, ZIP, ZILCH to do with him – hahahahah! He just doesn’t understand that at all!
LOL, hormones drive me crazy! It seems like just when everything is going well, all of the sudden I’m ornery and everyone is bugging me. I’ve learned to just “ride it out” for a few days and then things go back to normal. 🙂
I have a picky eater here as well. It used to be a huge pet peeve of mine. Okay, well, it’s still a pet peeve My rule now is: if he doesn’t like what’s being served at dinner, he’s welcome to substitute an apple or banana (it’s usually the veggie he’s not fond of), or throw a plain, lettuce salad together for himself. If he doesn’t like the meat, he can heat up a hot dog.
I used to cook completely separate meals for the kids until about six years ago, when we realized some of us were dealing with food allergies, others were on a diet, others were picky, etc., and if I accommodated everyone separately, I’d be cooking all night! Now I just accommodate the allergies and the diet for everybody, and if you’re still hungry later, you can help yourself to something else. And if I cook, somebody else needs to clean the kitchen.
I love all of your rules! I especially LOOOOOVE your “rule” about if you cook, somebody else cleans the kitchen. That’s awesome and I’m thinkin’ we need to implement that ’round here! <3