Dog Park

Breakfast: green tea, lemon water, 1 scrambled egg with 2 scrambled egg whites, red velvet cake yogurt
no snack today.. I was napping =]
Lunch: green tea, Chicken-Vegetable soup, a sliced pear
Dinner: green tea, Chicken-Vegetable soup, side salad
Dessert: Boston Creme Pie yogurt


So today we went to the dog park for the first time!!! It was really exciting, but the fun started even before that! It's not very often that we have a day I'm so bored I decide "hey, let's drive all the way to OKC just to please my dog!" but today was Luke's lucky day because it got to that point.

We started our venture going to the asian supermarket to appease my mother and grandmother by buying them Mi Goreng (basically Ramen, only with much better seasonings). Afterwards, we headed up May Ave to I-240 and went to.... dum dum dum... PETSMART!!! AHHHH. It was Luke Puppy's first time, and he was extremely well-behaved! He pulled on the leash quite a bit at times, but for the most part, he was excellent. He didn't jump up on anybody (not even the kids!) and he only barked once and that was because he wanted to say hi to a dog and we wouldn't let him go over there. We were so impressed! We both thought he would go crazy!

Wish the picture wasn't blurry, but he was a very good boy. He was amazed by all of the toys!! It was kind of a bad day to go because it was puppy adoption day and I'd say they had at least 20 puppies to adopt. They were kind of yippy of course, and Luke Puppy was kind of confused. ha. Oh well! We made it in and out in one place... And got him a cute new collar!

Then we headed over to OKC Paw Park in Lake Hefner Park. I'd bookmarked their website five months ago and we just haven't ever made it up. I was really happy that the opportunity presented itself today because he had a blast!

The dog he's sniffing was the first pooch we came to, before we even entered the gate. He was snapping at several other dogs, as well as Luke, so he was not my favorite. Rude! But the two golden retrievers also pictured were absolutely beautiful.

 They had a secluded piece of Lake Hefner dedicated to the dog park, so of course Luke had to jump in! It would have been fine, but, being the brilliant dog owners we are, we forgot to bring a towel! So glad we have a seat cover or my back seat would have been ruined!

See how dirty it is? ha. 

He was passed out and snoring before we even made it back to the highway.

As soon as we got home, he got a puppy bath and now smells phenomenal and looks shiny and smooth once again! 

Well, time to watch some Law & Order: SVU and wind down from all the excitement!

Oh, I forgot to mention, Braylen and I treated ourselves with a low-cal, diet cherry limeade from Sonic. Ooooopsie, negative water. Oh well!

Looking forward to Day 7 tomorrow! TACO SALAD, yummmm.

Day 5

Breakfast: green tea, lemon water, 2 hard-boiled eggs, strawberry shortcake yogurt
Mid-afternoon snack: a sliced pear
Lunch: green tea, Chicken-Vegetable soup, a sliced pear
Dinner: green tea, salad with spinach leaves and grape tomatoes
Dessert: a blueberry yogurt

Been in a pretty blah mood all day. Starting with when I exploded my hard boiled eggs I was cooking by leaving them in a pot of boiling water and forgetting about them. House was stinky. Husband had to make his own breakfast (cos I was done with eggs at that point). All downhill from there.

Hoping to start out fresh tomorrow. Probably going to make another pot of soup tonight because it was so stinkin' good.

Looking forward to this weekend.. Husband has off Friday and Saturday.

Day 4

Breakfast: green tea, lemon water, two hard boiled eggs, and a strawberry yogurt
Mid-afternoon snack: a handful of red grapes
Lunch: green tea, salad with carrots, cucumbers, and tomatoes, and a sliced apple
Dinner: green tea, grilled chicken and vegetables marinated in fat free italian dressing and Tabasco sauce
Dessert: a cinnamon roll yogurt

I was not impressed with the yogurt. Dinner was great. My grilling skills are improving.

Husband's class starts tomorrow. I'm excited to see how he likes it. I hope that working full time night shifts and juggling a class won't be too challenging.

After he left for work today I ate dinner. An hour or so later I worked out with the 17 Day Diet DVD (for the second day in a row). It seemed harder and easier today, all at once. It seemed shorter, but my legs are more sore today than they were yesterday. Ah well!

Then I immediately showered off the sweat. It was definitely needed. Afterwards I soaked my feet and watched Grey's Anatomy and Jersey Shore.

I'm going to cook chicken and vegetable soup tonight so it can sit and be good and marinated for tomorrow's lunches. Bray's getting tired of just salad so we thought we'd mix it up. Plus the example menu had it on there for yesterday and I've been putting it off so I better do it now! I already grilled the chicken today so now I just have to cut everything up and throw it in a pot.

Hoping I'll have more interesting things to say tomorrow. My car is fiiiiiiinally ready to be picked up (after being at the dealership for, what is it, 7 or 8 weeks now?) so I'm going down to Lawton to get it. I've enjoyed having the nice car they loaned me (2010 Hyundai Sonata) but it stresses me out driving it, so I'm ready to just get mine back!!

Better get my butt back in the kitchen.




Oops, just read over what I wrote and sorry it's so ramble-y. I have no excuse.

It's just a number?

Okay, this post is going to probably sound like I am feeling defeated, but I’ll try to bring it back to the positive, so bear with me (bare* with me? I don’t know).

We weighed ourselves the other day, as I already posted, and I was at 290.0 as of Monday. Before that day I hadn’t been on a scale (except at the doctors office) in years, and when I did get measured at the dr.’s, I don’t remember looking at the weight, because I didn’t want to know. Needless to say, 290 really crept up on me.

Which is stupid to say, like I had no involvement in its appearance. Or that I had no idea eating the way I was and not exercising wouldn’t bring me to this point. But, still the same, I wasn’t expecting that amount.

I think I may have some mild case of body dismorphic disorder… Except I think I have it in reverse. Let me explain. Since about my junior year of high school I’ve tried to dress myself better. This is sometimes hard because not everything trendy fits, but I do my best to find clothes that flatter me, for the most part. When I would look in the mirror, I felt pretty good about myself because I felt I presented myself well with what I had to work with. I thought I looked pretty good. I would see other girls that are also overweight and think to myself that I was doing pretty well. I couldn’t be as overweight as them.

My perspective is drastically changing. It has been for several weeks now, but I’ll use today as an example. Maybe some of you have been watching this new show on MTV called “I Used to be Fat”.  In today’s episode, an 18-year old girl lost 90 lbs in 89 days. She went from 250 to 160. That is amazing! But what shocked me the most was in the beginning of the show, before they gave her initial weight, I kept thinking “I’ve gotta weigh less than her.” Overall, she looks bigger than I am. And then when she weighed in at 250, I felt, I admit, somewhat defeated. Well, defeated, embarrassed, shocked, and disappointed that I would hope for someone to be more overweight than myself.

I suppose it was a good thing that I saw myself skinnier than I actually was, but it really makes me wonder what others see when they look at me. Are they surprised by my weighing 290 lbs or were they expecting it? Is Husband disappointed when he found out the number? How many overweight people look at me and think “man, I’m glad I’m not that heavy!”

None of these questions really need answers. No answer, good or bad, would help or satisfy me in the long run. I have to make these changes myself, regardless of outside opinions. I think I’ve just put up blinders on myself about my weight for so long, that once I’m opening my eyes, it’s kind of scary to know it’s gotten this far.

I pray that God can bring me to a healthy weight. Whether it be the 145 I proposed earlier or some other number.. I just want to feel good about myself like I never have before. I know no one is every truly satisfied with their body, but I wish weight wasn’t at the top of my list of changes.

One day, I hope I can look in the mirror and really see me for who I am.

Day 3

Another successful day of dieting. Before I get into that, I have to tell you that our dog is having sympathy body changes. Since the first cycle of this diet helps to cleanse your body and get rid of excess water, Husband and I have been making frequent trips to the bathroom (TMI?). Well, for the past three days, since we started the diet, our dog has gone to the door to be taken out more than ten times a day (when he used to only "ask" to go out maybe 4 or 5 times) and peed inside two times yesterday (after having not had an accident in at least 4 months). Nothing has changed in the amount or times we feed him and give him water, he is just peeing and pooping more than he ever has before. He senses something is different... ha.

Anyways, Husband is back on night shifts again (boo, hiss) so our eating schedules will be completely wonky. I eat breakfast at about 9 or 9:30 AM and he eats at about 5 PM. Lunch for me is at noon, and he'll probably eat at around midnight. I ate dinner when he left for work at about 6 PM, and he'll eat when he gets home from work at about 7 AM the next day. See what I mean about the wonky? It's certainly not ideal, but I'm hoping we can make it work! So since our schedules are different, we'll often be eating different things (except for dinner, which I make for both of us). From now on, I'll only document what I eat, just to make things a little simpler.

And after all, it's all about me anyways, right?

Breakfast: lemon water, green tea, strawberry shortcake yogurt (are you kidding me with these amazing flavors?)
Mid-afternoon snack: sliced pear
Lunch: green tea, salad with cucumbers and tomatoes (olive oil/vinegar dressing), and a sliced pear (we just bought the pears and they sounded reallllllly good today)
Dinner: green tea, two grilled turkey patties (marinated in fat free chicken broth) and steamed mixed vegetables (cauliflower, sugar snaps, and carrots)
Dessert: strawberries and banana yogurt

All in all, it was a pretty great day. The past two days with Husband have been really nice, since he's been off work and we've gotten to spend them together. We've loved getting to cook together and then have dinner at the table. Not that we never did that before, it's just something we really love doing and haven't done in a while. I love spending time with him so much, and I'm really going to miss those times together in the upcoming semesters while he works nights full time so he can go to school in the daytime. He's superman, and I am continuously amazed by him. =]

Oops! Enough about that.

Oh, I forgot to say... The turkey patties today were great, but I was disappointed with the veggies. The two previous days we'd been marinating them all day and then grilling them. To go from that much flavor to just steamed was pretty blah. Next time, I'll probably not steam them and I'll saute them instead or something.

Also, I'm getting more and more used to the green tea. I wouldn't drink it voluntarily, by any means, but if I gulp it all down before each meal, it's really not so bad. Yay!

Bass Pro Shop

It is now Day 2 of the 17 Day Diet and (although my stomach is in a constant grumble in between meals) I am feeling extremely confident. And now to recap what we've experienced so far:

We woke up yesterday morning and had our breakfast: a glass of lukewarm lemon water, a cup of green tea, and a yogurt. The water and green tea are going to take quite some time to get used to, I'm afraid. I've never been a tea drinker and although green tea is somewhat more preferable than regular tea, I'm still not a fan at all. But, with each meal it gets easier.

Oh, I got off track.

For lunch we each had a large salad with carrots, cucumbers, onion, and slices of red pepper. The dressing was one tbs. olive oil, two tbs. balsamic vinegar and a splash of water. Oh, and another cup of green tea to drink. =\

Dinner was, by far, the best meal of the day. Husband cooked our chicken breast and vegetables over the grill after having marinated all day. It was ridiculously good. We had a good friend over and even she agreed it was great! I'm looking forward to today's dinner, but first I'll share what we had for breakfast and lunch.

Almost forgot, we had a kefir smoothie as an after-dinner dessert. I'm not a big smoothie fan, but it was okay.

Breakfast for each of us today was two egg whites with a dash of salsa, lemon water, and green tea. Then lunch was another salad and an apple for each of us. Now, for the best part... We've been marinating our chicken and vegetables in a different marinade today so he can grill again. I'm excited to see how it turns out!!

Along with dieting, we're also supposed to do 17 minutes of exercise a day. Luke Puppy's been lappin' it up because we use our exercise time to take him on puppy walks.

I'll be sad when Husband goes back to work tomorrow and we have to reconfigure our mealtimes and puppy walk times. I'm just glad we have time to adjust before I go back to school.

Oh! Another thing we did yesterday was buy a scale and weighed ourselves (yikes!). It's been a LONG time since I had weighed in, and since I'd gained so much since we got married the number was a pretty large shock to me... I now weigh 290 pounds. Geeeeeez! But I have no shame because I know that this is the largest I have ever been and will ever be. Considering my goal weight is around 145, I have more than 100 lbs to lose! Fortunately, I'm confident in myself that the time to make the change is now! And with Husband's support and encouragement, it's going to be that much easier.

We also joined a group on FB that his cousin Carli started called the Biggest Winner. We weigh in every Monday and at the end of 8 weeks whoever lost the most fat percentage wins a $20 gift card from every person in the group to the clothing store of the winner's choice. Pretty excited to see how Husband and I pan out!

*Side Note: I asked him what clothing store he would choose if he won and he said "Bass Pro Shop." Ummm...

Anyways, all is good so far. Ready to see how the rest of this first cycle goes!!

Happy New Year!

Well, my year is starting off with excitement. Braylen got called in for work today, so we had to cancel our plans to celebrate late Christmas with his family.

(Side note: He went to work today and did absolutely nothing... For 10 hours)

So I decided, when we found this out yesterday, that I would finally do the deep cleaning that I've needed to do for a while now. Finally finished out all of the laundry (I mean all of it... Towels, bedding, and table cloths also). Also washed the dishes, counters, window sill, washer/dryer, and refrigerator. I cleaned out our refrigerator's excess food a day early because most of it was old and expired anyways.

So this is what our refrigerator looks like at the moment. I'm now ready to fill it up with fresh foods and produce. Hoping that none of it will go to waste!

Oh, and Husband and I decided that we will officially celebrate the new year and his days off of work tomorrow by consuming the rest of our alcohol (since there's no alcohol allowed on this diet) so forgive me if I don't make any posts tomorrow night. =]