Thoughts

I'm sitting here pumped up about losing my baby weight. Let's be honest from the get go. It's not all baby weight. Yes I have 6 children so there is baby weight there. My first child I gained 4 pounds during that pregnancy and went home 20 pounds less than my pre- pregnancy weight. Worked out and got into pretty good shape and then got sick and well life happened. I will say that my first child's father was good at pushing me to work out. Sometimes too good and I'd get mad and leave him at the gym. My second child I gained 16 pounds and had lost it all again when I got pregnant with my 3rd child. Gained 16 pounds and lost it and was doing pretty good at losing weight when I got pregnant with my 4th child. Gained 50 pounds with my 4th. After I had her I really hit the gym and was meeting with a trainer 2 days a week, plus exercising another 3-4 days on my own. Hadn't lost all of the 50 I gained from her when I got pregnant with my 5, and then my 6th. Granted I didn't gain but 14 pounds with my 6th, but that put me back up to a weight I'm not happy with. 

I've been off and on trying to losing the weight from my pregnancies. I'm a stress eater. 10 days after my son (my 6th child) was born my Dad died. I had surgery in 2012, had the worst year ever in 2013...well now it's 2014 and it's time to end the un healthy eating. I'm done with it. I'm done with being over weight as well.

I'm on day 6 of my lifestyle change. I joined a challenge to do 25 squats a day for 7 days. Today is day 6. I know you're thinking "25 squats a day is nothing". Well it's something when you haven't exercised in months! I'm not super sore now. After 2 days my legs were on fire, after day 3 my butt was so sore. It hurt to sit down, it hurt to stand up and it hurt the most to walk. You know what though, I did it. I kept going with the squats, I'm still going with my shakes, and I'm still motivated to keep going.

I think motivation is what keeps killing me. I can't seem to stay motivated and I have no support here at home. I was just told yesterday by my husband that he doesn't "care". He kept making stupid and nasty comments about my squats and I explained to him the challenge I'm doing and those were his words "I don't care".  How can you not care? 

I've never in the past had any support from my husband on losing weight. I've always heard "You don't need to lose weight", "I don't want you getting too skinny", "Why are you trying to lose weight". If he isn't saying it then he is trying to prevent it by bringing home junk food. I have very little will power and he knows this. I don't buy it so that I don't eat it. He knows if he brings it in the house that I'm going to cave and eat it. Now I'm not blaming my weight gain and lack of weight loss on my husband, I'm just saying he doesn't help.

I always start off very motivated and tell myself "I've got this", "I'm doing it this time". I always fail. I always lose motivation. I've got to keep it this time. I want to be healthy so badly. I'm going to find a way to motivate myself daily! My friend Doug is helping with this, he post something that motivates everyone every day on Facebook, sometimes more than one post (ok most days it's more than one post). He tells me all the time "self motivate"! 

As I've been looking through Pinterest at things other people have posted, either sayings, pictures, recipes etc I find myself thinking "Oh I want to look like her", "Is that too much muscle on a woman...nah I want to look like her". I stopped myself. NO I don't want to look like any of the pictures I saw. I want to look like me, except a healthy in shape me. Yes, I'm still saying "Oh I'd like to have my legs look like that", "Oh I like her abs etc". BUT I have to remember I'm Jessica! Deep down under all this fat I'm still Jessica. Yes, I have a weight that I'd like to weigh in mind. But I know that once I get into the shape I want it's not going to be a weight that the scale says.If I weigh 10 pounds more than the goal weight I have set, but I'm healthy and I like the way I look am I going to kill myself to get those last 10 pounds off...no I'm going to be happy with my body and keep working to keep myself healthy and in that shape.

All this being said I just want to stay motivated and on track. I've got to stop letting my husband weigh me down. I'm doing this for me, my kids and to show my kids a healthier way of life. If my husband doesn't get on board that's his loss. I would like him to open his eyes and see that this is something we should be doing together, but I'm not going to sit around waiting on him to get ready either. I've put this off for far too long. I've lost myself during this time. It's time to bring myself back and improve myself.

Jess

Update

Here we go! 12 pound loss and 11 inches!

Still going strong with the challenge. I'm on my second round since I did so bad on the first one. Due to hip injury, shoulder injury and just not working out.

Jess

That's a start

The 90 day challenge has ended and I lost 10 pounds and 8 1/2 inches off my body! Most of that being off my stomach! I'll be completely honest also. I didn't work out except for 1 walk during those 90 days. I also didn't do a full 90 days. I kept doing the challenge and then going off of the challenge and going back on etc. I also had two injuries while doing the challenge. One being a hip injury in December and the other being a shoulder injury that has hung around for almost a month.

I started a new 90 day challenge this week and my 90 days will be up 2 days before school gets out. Just in time for summer and all the wonderful veggies and fruits that come with summer. This year I'm planning a HUGE garden and pray that I get a ton of fruits and veggies so I can freeze and can them.

I have a plan! I'm going to do this 90 day challenge sticking to it the best I can. I'm going to be working out this time around. I have an exercise bike now and even with my shoulder injury I can get on that. I went walking yesterday with a friend and rode the bike for 30 minutes today. I've got this!! I'm going to switch up workouts so I don't get bored doing the same things over and over.  I have a little black dress that I bought before when I was 37 pounds lighter than I am right now. I will hang that up in my room to keep me on the ball. I'm going to find a dress that's even smaller than that to keep me going to my final goal. Grand total I have/had 80 pounds to lose. When I first started this journey. Now due to meds I had to take for the shoulder I gained 5 of the 10 pounds I lost back. Not to worry though since starting my challenge again I've lost 3 pounds already.

I have to want this for me also. It's great that I'm doing it for my husband to have a hot wife, and my kids to have a healthy mom and role model, but I have to want to please myself.

Jess

New Year

Will 2013 be the year that I finally get my crap together and get this baby weight off? You better believe it is going to be the year!

I started back on my 90 day challenge on the 31st and granted I'm having some trouble some days, but I'm not giving up! I'm going to keep on going! It's important to me that I get this weight off and get back to working out.

Monday my hubby goes back to daylight shift and I'll be putting the kids and daycare kids down for naps and pulling out the DVD's. It's time to kick the weight loss into high gear!

So far 6 pounds are gone but 8 inches are also go. The best part of all 4 1/2 inches are gone from my stomach! My hardest place to lose the weight!

Jess

90 day challenge!

Back on Decmember 1st I joined a 90 day challenge with my friend Doug! It's an easy challenge. There are about 20 of us doing it and we are trying to lose a total of 500 pounds. I myself have a total of 80 pounds to lose. We are doing this as a group to help push each other and keep each other going. I'm also starting drinking 2 meal replacement shakes. They are full of vitamins and protein. They are heart healthy, gluten free, lactose free shakes. They have melted 10 million pounds of fat in the past 2 years. They taste awesome also!

If you are interested in finding out more about the product please email me jessicastrack@yahoo.com

Jess

WHY???

Last week I took my 15 month old son in for a well check up visit. While I was there one of the ladies up front says "Oh you're expecting again"! She must have said she's sorry about 10 times after I told her I wasn't expecting. One of the ladies at the library said this to me not to long ago also. Why do people keep thinking I'm expecting.

OH MY WORD! We took my 7yr old out for her birthday dinner last night, of course all 5 girls had to go potty. While in the bathroom I get a good look at my full body. I look like I'm EXPECTING!!! No wonder people keep thinking I'm having baby #7.

I'm so upset and keep tearing up. I can't believe I let myself stop working out last year. I was doing so good. I'd lost 21 pounds. Why did I stop? Why can I not seem to get started again? Why am I not right this second writting down a plan to get in shape? Why have I not started some sort of workout program?

Jess

Doing it!

Yesterday I tired my hand at the eating every 3 hours think. I'm trying to give my metabolism a boost. Did pretty good until I had a cleaning appointment when I was suppose to be eating. Hard to eat something while your getting your teeth cleaned:)

Today I will be home most of the day, so far I'm doing good. I've had Greek yogurt (and friend said try this because it has over 10g protein), part of a banana, peanut butter & Nutella bagel and an apple. Lunch time is around the corner. Not 100% sure what I'll be having then.

A friend posted the weather for next week (as of right now) and it's going to be a beautiful day to get out and walk. I'm waiting on my baby sitting schedule for next week so I can sit down and write down the times and all that I'm working out. Oh and what I'll be doing. I've lined up a friend to go walking with me, so no backing out there:)

Put a fork in me I'm done being fat! Time to melt away the fat that has taken over my body. I'm ready to be "one hot mama"! Time to get the party started! Gonna make me sweat til I bleed. Gonna bring sexy back. Ok enough with the songs. Need to update the songs on my exercise track on the Ipod!

Jess

Doing better

I've been doing better getting my 8 glasses of water in every day. Some days and better than others. Yesterday wasn't so great. I had all the kids home due to a snow day. Yes we had a snow day on March 5th. I was working on a knitting project also, which got me all off track.

Today I'm starting on cutting back on the amount of food I eat. I'm not ready to go full force Weight Watchers again, or start counting calories etc. I'm going into this slowly. I had oatmeal for breakfast and plan to get some fruit as a snack here in a few.

I've still got to sit down and figure out a work out schedule of some sort. I'm going to have to do this around my husband's schedule. As my 15 month old doesn't like to be away from me or Daddy. This is going to be interesting to say the least. I wish that warm weather would get here and stay. It's much easier to put the little ones in the stroller and go. I will get this figured out!

Jess

Why do I get off track?

Why do I keep getting off track? Life and kids are the only two things I can come up with. I got off track before Thanksgiving and Christmas. I had my surgery in January, spent Feb not allowed to lift and recovering. Now that it's March it's time to get back on track.

It seems like I always lose about 20 pounds and then get off track. I looked on my Spark people page and noticed I've gained 4 pounds since my post in September. I know that I was down more than that though. I'm sick of being fat, but I can't seem to get myself going.

I keep thinking to myself "My husband doesn't have a problem with my body, why should I". The problem being is that I'm not happy with my body. I need to get back to the pissed off phase that I was in when I lost all the weight before I had my 4th child. I need my Dr to say something to me like he did before. He wasn't ugly when he said it, but I was pmsing and it just pissed me off. I need that again. Maybe I should call up my beloved Dr. and get him to say it again.

I need a workout buddy. Someone who depends on me to be there and push them and they will turn around and push me as well.

I need TIME! Having 6 kids, having 4 of those 6 home all day every day,homeschooling,  a hubby who works night shift and a strange schedule at that, baby sitting and just every day life things I'm having a hard time fitting in exercise. Not long ago I homeschooled my oldest which was nice because she could baby sit while I went to the gym for an hour or so. She's back in public school so that's a no go. I've got to sit down and think of something that is going to work for me. I'm thinking I might have to sit down and do this week by week as my baby sitting schedule changes weekly!

Today I'm starting over by drinking my 8 glasses of water a day. I've been only drinking 1-2 glasses a day. That's horrible! I'm starting with this and will figure the rest out as I go!

Jess

Surgery

Since I've had surgery to remove my gallbladder I've had to take a break from exercise. Not that I was doing much before surgery. Although I've been up and moving around some after surgery. I read that this helping you recover quicker. So the day after surgery I walked as much as I could stand around the house. I've been getting stronger and stronger each day. Still trying not to over do it though. I haven't done much walking outside the house. Just to the car and into the gas station to get my papers for coupons LOL. If you know me well you know I'm not missing my newspapers!
Anyway, once I have my follow up appointment I plan to get back to at least walking.

Jess

2012 here we go!

I've been HORRIBLE! I've got to get back on track. I've got to figure out how to get exercise back into my schedule. I was homeschooling my oldest which worked out perfect because I would go exercise during nap time and she would watch her siblings during nap so I could work out. I've put her back in public school which means no sitter during nap time:(

Now my oldest is wanting to lose weight and get in shape, so I need to help her with this. Got to figure out a way to get it so we both get in exercise.

One good thing is that I've only gained a few ozs since falling hard off the wagon. With all the holiday goodies I thought for sure I had gained weight. So thankful that I didn't gain a ton of weight.

Now to figure out some sort of schedule and get myself back on track! I'm coming back people get ready!!!!

Fell off the wagon

I've fallen off the wagon so hard. I've not been exercising or doing Weight Watchers for almost 3 weeks now. Sept 16th was the last day I wrote in my journal. I've been SO stressed out that it's not even funny. Really too much and too personal to go on my blog, butt's just been more than I can handle.
I'm now not only homeschooling my oldest but I'm now homeschooling my second oldest. I'm having a hard time adjusting my schedule. Yesterday was the first day I've excersised in I don't know how long. I did 1.6 miles and 25 squats.
One challenge I've decided to do for myself is 25 squats a day until the New Year! I'm going to try my hardest to get back to the gym and get to walking/biking again. I need to add more though. I want to get this weight off.
I have to remind myself all the time that I didn't put it on overnight and it's not going to come off overnight. I know that I'm doing good when I eat right and excerise, but it's so hard for me. I'm having a really hard time balancing everything.
I really need a workout buddy!

New Goals

I’ve rewritten my goals after talking to my trainer.

July 5^th starting weight 228

August 7^th Goal 220 August 7th weight 221.2

September 4 Goal 212 September 4th weight 211.6 (YES)

October 9^th Goal 204

November 6^th Goal 196

December 4^th Goal 188

January 8^th Goal 180

February 5^th Goal 172

March 4^th Goal 164

April 8^th Goal 156

May 6^th Goal 148

June 3^rd Goal 140

Here’s the thing though. I keep finding different “healthy” weight ranges for my height. Web MD says 115-154 (115 I’d be sick looking). Weight Watchers says 124-155. They aren’t too different. I’m thinking of going with Weight Watchers since that’s the program I’m actually doing. The day I went into labor with my first daughter I was 156. The day I went home from having my daughter I was 135. I’m having a really hard time setting a goal weight.

September challenge

I've decided that each month I should set up some sort of a challenge for myself. Just for the heck of it. I saw that one of my friends was doing a 100 mile challenge, so I thought that sounds like a good challenge. So for this month I'm going to try walking/biking 100 miles for the month of September.

So far this month (yes, I know it's only the 2nd) I've done 2 miles. 98 miles to go:)

I have another friend that is doing 100 squats per day for 100 days. I tried, I really did, I'm just not there yet. I tried breaking it down and doing 25 here and 25 there, just didn't work. I've tried doing 50 at a time and that didn't work for me either. Maybe I'll start off slow and do 50 a day and then work my way up.

Next month is going to start the really hard months. We've got two birthday's in my family next month. Halloween, Thanksgiving, 2 more birthdays, Christmas, New Years, 2 more birthdays, Valentine's day, and then 2 more birthday's, Memorial Day, and then I'll hit summer again and get a break for the month of June! I love cake! I love Thanksgiving and Christmas and all the yummy goodies that come along with those holidays! It's going to be rough!

Workouts this week!

For some reason it seems like the past two weeks I've had a hard time working out on Monday's. Here is what I did this week.

Tuesday~walked 1.33 miles (then came home and we had an earthquake)

Wednesday~walked 1.60 miles, biked 3.11

Thursday~ walked 1.61 miles, biked 3.16 miles

Friday~walked 1.78 miles, biked 3.5 miles, 100 squats

I joined a challenge to do 100 squats a day for 100 days. We shall see how this goes. I'm going to give it my best though. Gotta get my booty and legs in shape:)

This week as been a really stressful, heartbreaking week. Today I decided that I was going to go to the gym and try to work out some stress. It helped for the most part. I'm sure my weight will probably show my stress this week. Although I'm really proud of myself for not stress eating. Instead I tried to sweat out my stress! I hope the scale shows a move down this week, but we shall see on Sunday morning!

13.8 pounds GONE!

I've decided to add updated pictures for every 10 pounds I lose. Last week I hadn't lost 10 pounds now I've lost 13.8 pounds. I'm thrilled almost 14 pounds gone! Here are some before and after pictures.

Me 228.2

Me at 214.2

My daughter took some close up pictures this time around. I don't know if I can tell a difference in the pictures but I can tell a difference in my clothes! Looking forward to doing measurements next month and the next set of pictures!

Rocking the workout this week!

I'm am rocking it on my workouts this week! I knew I'd be able to get some good workouts in once school started.

Tuesday~I walked 1.2 miles
Wednesday~ walked 1.38 miles, biked 1 mile
Thursday~walked 1.26 miles, biked 2 miles
Friday~walked 1.6 miles and biked 3 miles

Grand total for the week of 11 miles:) My grand total since starting to work out is 26.38 miles! I'm going to do an update on my "Walking around the U.S.A." sometime this weekend!  I'm just thrilled with my work this week! I think tomorrow I'm going to do an exercise DVD, maybe go for a walk.

Wow 6 weeks!

I just went back and looked at my calendar to find out I've been doing WW for 6 weeks today! I feel good and bad! I feel good that it's been 6 weeks and I'm still doing well. Although I did take a little over 2 weeks off. I got sick & had VBS, then vacation, and then I just didn't get right back on track after vacation! I've lost 8 inches off my body and I'm lost 9.8 pounds (also 10 pounds). I haven't been craving chocolate everyday! Don't get me wrong I did crave it from time to time and still eat it, but I count it in my points. Oh and I haven't taken a day "off" since getting back on track after vacation!

Now why do I feel bad? I haven't been walking every day like I've been wanting to walk. I wanted to walk a mile every day. It seems like at most I'm getting about 3 miles a week at the moment. I really am going to try to work harder at getting at least 5 miles in a week. I did however get in a lower body workout one day last week. I've got some DVD's sitting at the library for me that I need to go pick up.

School starts for some of my kids tomorrow. I think I'm going to start going to the gym during nap time, or walking during nap time. I really need to get to moving on my "around the U.S.A." challenge that I'm doing also. I've walked a little over 16 miles so far! If I could get to the gym then I can ride on the bike also, really rack up those miles.

Just got to keep going!

Struggling

I'm struggling! I'm having a really hard time getting workouts in. My daily schedule is just nuts right now. I've had to miss walking twice this week due to grocery shopping. This morning I woke up and got out of the house right thing in the morning so that I could get my walk in. I knew if I didn't I wouldn't get my walk in today. I've really got to save up for a treadmill.
The gym I belong to has odd childcare hours and I also can't bring the kids I watch there. So during the days I watch kids I'm pretty much stuck here. Can't go walking because I don't have a big enough stroller. I have a double. I need at least 3 seats. I'm thinking I might have to work something out once school starts.
Even having gotten my walk in today I still want to do a DVD. I don't think my just walking a mile (or a little over) is going to be enough here in the near future to lose the weight I want to lose. I'm going to have to crank it up. I really want to do the couch to 5k program but can't do the running in the shoes I have right now. Gotta wait til next month to get me some running shoes. Regardless my favorite tennis shoes have done their duty and should be put to rest!
I'm really trying not to stress too much about the lack of workout sessions I have gotten in. I'm losing weight, just not as quickly as I would like. I know it takes time. It goes on fast, but sure doesn't come off very fast.
I figure once school starts I'll be able to set up a much better workout schedule, but for now I'd like to have some sort of idea of things to do.

Thrilled!

I woke up this morning with a little bit of excitement! Today is the day (actually yesterday was) that I take the measurements to see how many inches I'd lost. I knew I'd lost some I could feel it in my middle! I took all my measurements and I've lost a total of 8 inches. I weighed again this morning just for the heck of it also and I've lost 9 pounds! Not bad for one month:) One month with a vacation in there also!