My little Bit of Honey

I'm sitting here 3 pounds lighter than I was last week, I'm sitting here relishing in the fact that I'm actually DOING something and that I feel good about my body for the first time in awhile. Last week something kind of snapped in my head, it was like a slap in the face almost. I had to make a change, I've said this so many times before but I just can't explain it. So I decided to cut down on my gluten as well as dairy, this isn't for everyone and for someone with a serious love of cheese - this was not easy. I also was stuck with what I would have for breakfast, for so long I've been having yogurt/fruit/granola. So I of course hit up pinterest thinking all I would find is "you have to suffer and eat gross food". Well, that's not true. I found this great recipe for a "Banana pecan coconut bowl" and it is REALY good, it's like oatmeal without the oats. On other days I can have eggs AND I CAN HAVE BACON. Amazing. For lunch I have

I've been gone for awhile, I know. Trust me, I know. I've been having such a hard time finding something that I can stick to and for the longest time I couldn't figure out why, I've been gaining weight back and I'm really sad and ashamed about that. I know I need to get recommitted and finally lose this last 30 pounds that I've been working towards for 3 years now. YES THREE YEARS. Ugh. So I'm getting back to it, I'm going to make three small goals for each week and just focus on those. It won't be major changes at first, I'll work up to that, but it'll be something at least. I'm also really considering joining a gym, my company pays for a good amount of a gym membership so I really don't have an excuse. Working from home as much as I thought it would make things easier, has made me lazier so I think I need something to get me out of the house for a little while each day. Plus with the winter coming running outside is not ideal and

Today marks two years since I officially gave up soda. I can't believe it, I've never gone this long and I'm SO proud of myself for it! To understand why I feel this way, let's go back in time.. growing up all I drank was soda, water was gross. I would wake up, go to school and go directly to the soda machines, get a mountain dew and drink it all before 8am. Always had a bottle of soda with me during the day at school and most days my lunch was only soda and a candy bar (seriously). I would get the supersized coke at McDonald's every time. When I met my husband, I was drinking soda constantly (this was 9 years ago), in fact the first real conversation we had was when I was going to get a soda in the vending machine at work. I've had several cavities over the years, one root canal and most of the enamel has worn off my teeth. I had digestive issues and migraines constantly, I never considered that this was having such an adverse affect on my health. As time went

I think the past few months have been tough for me, not sure exactly why, just a lot going on. A lot of stress and unfortunately I crawled back into my old cave of self indulgence and let the progress I was making slip away. I gained weight back and I was OK with it. Well today I'm not OK with it, today I took a step towards finally losing this weight once and for all. I started C25K (for the 800000 time) and did my first run with it. I ran 2 miles and it felt good, finally it felt good to be out there. I gave it all I had for those 25 minutes, I walked when they told me to walk but for the minute I ran, I actually ran, not jogged lightly. I got a cramp in my right side about half way through but I didn't stop. I recharged my FitBit for the first time in a few months and put it vowing to only take it off to shower and charge it (or to let my wrist rest for a few hours). I had a salad for lunch. I've started MFP again and am going to log my food. So how am I going to sta

I haven't posted in quite awhile, one of the reasons is that I've been pretty busy. My husband and I spent 9 days trekking around Europe and it was amazing. Rome was my favorite, such a beautiful city filled with just lovely people. Paris was beautiful too, but Roma, Roma has my heart. So while I had a fantastic Summer, it was also a wee bit tough on me emotionally. I constantly had this nagging feeling in the back of my head that I just needed to get back on track and it just never happened. I stopped running altogether and put weight back on (I'm not sure how much because I am absolutely terrified to weigh myself right now), it was just not a good time for me. I don't really know where the mental block came from, I just kept putting it off and eating one more of this or drinking more of that. I feel it physically too, my asthma which was non existent for almost the entire summer is back, I went for a run and my body just felt sluggish. I restarted C25K, I've don

My 31st Birthday was on Saturday, I was in NYC with friends for a wedding, I didn't mind one bit. It was an excellent weekend and I danced, drank (and drank..) and ate my way through the weekend. It is what it is and I don't regret a second of it I partied like I was 21 again, except my body very quickly reminded me that I am NOT 21 anymore. By the end of the weekend my whole body ached and I felt like I was hit by a truck. Still it was totally worth it.  Now though, I'm onto my 31st year and I feel like I need to set some new goals for myself. The goals have always been the same and usually they don't get achieved. Sad, yet true. I've been trying to lose this last 24 pounds for a few months now, I really need to take it seriously now. So I was looking on Pinterest trying to find some motivation. I stumbled upon a blog that a woman wrote and it was about running at least 1 mile every day for a year. I can do that. I can totally do that, might be tough in the winte

Last week was pretty terrible, I won't lie. I didn't grocery shop so I didn't have much for healthy food in the house. We had a party at the house so I had all this... yummy but crappy for you food all around me. Not to mention the delicious wine and beer we also got, hard stuff to say no to and my willpower was in the toilet basically. So Friday I took the time I needed, pulled myself up by my bootstraps and shopped, got the healthy stuff and went from there. I still didn't do GREAT this weekend, but I had the option. Today though, today I am on my shit. I did two workouts and have eaten really well so far, including vegetables! I have the hardest time with veggies, seriously. Drinking my water as well and just feeling better. I went for a run and it was HARD but I also got down to a really good under 10 minute pace for 2 miles which has not happened in awhile. So, that's great! I hit my 10k steps and am on an accountability thread group so I have my own post tha

If you've been reading along, you may remember that awhile back I made an appointment to see a Nutritionist, well that appointment was on Friday. It was really interesting to say the least and very eye opening. I had talked to a friend before going and knew somewhat of what I should expect. I'll try to break down the visit as best I can. So the first thing we she did was just of course ask me why I was there and about my current eating habits. I told her I'm looking to lose the last 25 pounds and get back to pre baby weight but being healthier and to change my habits - for life. I also mentioned that I'm an emotional eater, stress makes me eat. She was not concerned with my calories, but more my balance of what I was eating. Makes sense. She also helped me see that I've really been depriving myself of things that are part of a BALANCED diet. The key word there is balanced, I eat a lot of starch (duh potatoes) and a lot of sugar but not a lot of natural sugar which

Well week 3 is in the books, great! I will say honestly I haven't been as good this week, but, that's just due to some rough stuff we're going through, all will be ok and I am back on track today with counting calories and working out. I did get a run in on Monday which was great,I will also do a workout today!  I weighed myself this morning just to see how I was doing, I was not expecting any type of loss ( I weighed in on Sunday and I did in fact lose 2 pound last week). Well I lost .8 oz! I am SO close to being where I was when I weighed in last! I'm not expecting a big loss this week for my own personal reasons, but, it would be nice to lose .2 more pounds and be back where I was a few weeks ago!  We will see! I had to get dressed up yesterday (I work from home so most days my "dressed up" is my LLR leggings and a tank top) and I hadn't worn my "Dressy" clothes in awhile and man it was difficult to find something that fit, everything was too

I'm 2 weeks in as of today, last week went great with the exception of Saturday and Sunday. I strayed a bit and didn't do as well as I should have. Ah well, everyone has slip ups sometimes. I've basically stuck to my healthy eating and I've been exercising a lot more, at least once a day I'll do something. Yesterday I did a different workout and it was good, but didn't give me the steps I needed, so I decided to go for a run at lunch. I did great, I did stop for a few minutes here and there, but I kept going and finished up the session with running (which is important!) and did not vomit on the side of the road (which I will admit, I felt like it a few times - it was HOT). Both are wins.  So I'm sore all the time pretty much but it's a good sore, it's that "my muscles are changing" type of sore.   So I've been feeling pretty good overall, I've really upped my protein and my Omega 3s which has helped! I'm eating probably about.

Almost all of my life, I've always been tired. I've had very few days where I felt completely GOOD and where I wasn't suffering from something. I've grown tolerant of it and just accepted that it is what it is. I've been focusing on my calories for the last few years and ensuring that I wasn't eating too much so I could lose weight. I thought that if I kept doing that, I'd eventually feel better. Doesn't really work like that, calories aren't the only factor here and if I'm going to practice what I preach, then I really needed to pay attention to the bigger picture. Let's go through how I feel on a daily basis: Wake up: Exhausted and just not able to shake this "out of it feeling".  8-9 AM - Have 2 cups of coffee and slowly start to wake up and feel better 10-2pm - feel good! Energized and able to get stuff done! 2PM on - Start to feel tired, headache, foggy brain, lose motivation/energy/irritable I have been dealing with thi

Now you have BNL stuck in your head, you're welcome. Anywho..it's been one week since I kicked myself in the ass and got back on track. In that week I've stayed within calories and have exercised every day but one. I'm considering this first week a big win and while I didn't lose weight, I am feeling better body wise which is always a plus. I only had meat once with a meal (though to be fair I did try some of my husband/sons dinner as well, meh) and am doing really well with my water! I've been weighing/measuring everything and finding that what the serving size says on the box in reference to cups/number of items isn't necessarily the same as the weight they say. So for my wheat thins it says you can have something like 16 which comes out to roughly 29 G (I'm not sure if this is exact numbers but you get the point). Well it's usually a bit UNDER 16 crackers, so I go with the weight. Not sure if this is the right way to do it, buuuuuuuuut it's

I've been doing well with working out, I only skipped one day so far since last Wednesday, so that will be my rest day.  Yesterday, I went for a run for the first time in over a month. I ran for 20 minutes straight, it felt so damn good to be out there. I took it easy on myself and made most of the run downhill, which really really helped me. Today will be another YouTube workout and tomorrow will be up early for a run. I've also got my 10k steps every day except for Saturday, I think I would've gotten the steps on Saturday if I hadn't had to charge my Fitbit.   Eating has been going well also, last night I had a baked sweet potato (those are my thing lately) with salsa on it and a bit of cheddar cheese. After dinner I had enough calories leftover for a frozen yogurt bar, yum. This weekend was also a success for me because I was able to control my portions for wine. I had one glass of wine each night and weighed them so I knew exactly how much I was having: 4 oz Frida

Lately, I haven't been super jazzed about running, not sure why, I just haven't been feeling it. The thought of going for a run just has me feeling..bleh. So with that, I've been eating meh and not focusing on myself. It's been tough and my body is definitely feeling it, I've been quite tired and moody, which happens every now and then but this really has been on another level and it's not good. Exercise always makes me feel good, but if I'm not excited about something, I'm not going to continue it, this usually happens when I get to this point with running, I don't feel connected with running and I just end up stopping. With that being said, I know I have to get back to doing it because it really is such a great workout.  I will, in time. I'll figure out a way to love it again. With that being said, in the meantime I really have to find something else to do that will help. So I turned to YouTube, there's THOUSANDS of workout videos there.

It's been about 5 years or so that I've been calorie counting etc. but I've never really had a really good grasp about WHAT exactly I should be eating. I know the basics, but the balance and how much I should actually be eating has always been a mystery to me. So, I decided to reach out to my doctors office and see if I could get a referral to see a nutritionist. They got back to me and have one right in the office that I go to (great!) and they will contact me to schedule an appointment. I am for some reason nervous about this, I am sure they will tell me I need to lose a decent amount of weight and that I'm probably not eating as well as I should be. It'll be nice to actually have a good and strong foundation to build on though, instead of just guessing "this is how much I need to eat" and I should only have this amount of carbs and sugar a day etc. I'm also hoping it helps me figure out why I feel so.. blah all of the time. I refuse to believe that

I haven't really been writing lately, I'm finding it hard to stay in the groove.  I write when I'm doing well because of course I have good things to write about. I try to write when I'm not doing so well and usually end up deleting the post 4 times before just quitting all together. Here is my struggle: I cannot for the life of me stay with this running thing. I am having the hardest time staying motivated to go out and run! It's beautiful out in the morning, I can get up at 5am and have my run done by 6, get home and get my day started. I just have such a hard time actually getting up and getting out there.  I know it's a matter of having that push, I just, I'm not even really sure why I can't. Then if I don't get up, I think that I'll be able to get out and go for a run during the day, well with my new workload, that doesn't happen either.  I've been trying to do a lot of workouts I found on Pinterest because those can be done quickl

I grew up as a member of the clean plate club and usually that plate had a lot more than the recommended serving size and if you've been reading my blog, you'll know that I love to eat. I can eat an entire large pizza on my own (and have), whole pint of ice cream? yep. Large fries (hell yes). If something tastes good I have a bottomless pit for a stomach. Doesn't really apply to the healthy and good for you stuff. Why go back for seconds on the green veggies if you can have more mashed potatoes or french fries?  Portion control is my biggest battle, I just can't seem to get it down. I try to chew slowly, but still I want more when I'm done, even when I'm full. It's been such a mind game to work it out in my head. I did the 21 day fix awhile back and sure it was great and helped a bit, but the containers didn't work that great for me when it came to dinner with my family and I just couldn't have that much forethought to actually measure things out e

Losing weight is crazy hard, staying on track can be nearly impossible if you aren't 100% committed. I'd be lying if I said I have this down pat, I don't. I really, really don't. I've been working at this for 2 years now and I still have no idea what I'm doing, but I keep working on it. I keep going and I keep trying. I use a lot of tools to get this done, because mainly I can't do this on my own. So, for this post I'll go further into details about the tools I use, in no particular order! Number 1: MyFitnessPal. This was the one thing that has really kept me going and kept me on track. I use the site and I use the app, the site is a little easier, but the app is convenient because I always have access to it. I've got a 184 day streak going right now, to be fair, I haven't logged every day for 185 days but I'm working on that. Number 2: Pinterest. Seriously, Pinterest has been so helpful.. I find healthy meals that I can eat and my family

*bzzz bzzz bzzzz*  "No, please, No" My Fitbit alarm buzzed on my arm telling me that it was already 4am. Time to get up. I got up and stumbled my way into the bathroom and turned the light on (ouch..too bright) and started to think of the excuses I could use to be able to go back to bed. The excuses that I wouldn't feel bad about later.. "I didn't sleep well" that one is true, but I did sleep. "I feel sick" that one isn't true, I felt fine other than being tired. So I ran out of excuses and realized that if I didn't get up and go, I'd be miserable later and mad that I skipped my run. I'd be continuing the spiral I had been on the last few weeks and wouldn't be back on track. I'd fall back to where I was before and I'd put weight back on. So, I got dressed, put my contacts in and was out the door. Drove the 45 minutes to my office park, parked my car and sat for about 2 minutes. Still trying to talk myself out of it, comp

When I was in high school and even in my early/mid 20s I had one ambition in relation to my body: I wanted to be skinny. I didn't care how I got there, I just wanted to be small and skinny, wanted to be just like the other girls in my high school who could fit into a size 0 or size 2. It was my DREAM. Now, I was not fat in high school, I always weighed somewhere in the mid-high 140s (which for my frame works)but I always felt that I was bigger than the other girls and it was hard. I didn't see the other girls that were my size and were perfectly healthy (like I was). Nope.. I saw the "popular" girls who were small and wore barely there clothes and could get away with it. I've always had eh hm curves and I just wanted them to go away. When I graduated high school, I wasn't walking 4 miles every day so I definitely gained a good amount of weight and that was hard.. so I started with the yo yo dieting. Let me tell you, I tried everything to be skinny. I tried die

The last few weeks have been very..chaotic to say the least. We sold a house/bought a house and moved into said house all in the same day (or two days rather) so life has been a bit..unsettled to say the least. I haven't run in over a week so that's been rough as well, this week I'm settling into a new routine and getting back on the right path. During all of this, I finished up my 30 day challenge. I weighed in on Saturday morning and my final weight loss total was: 8lbs. I am into the 150s, which I haven't seen in quite a long time and I have 24lbs to go until I hit my goal and I have lost a total of 32.2lbs. I am focused and I am ready to tackle the last 24lbs and get back to where I feel comfortable and back to being happy with my body.  So, what now? How do I proceed?  Well I've been really thinking about it and I think I'll do another 30 day challenge. Today is May 10th so the next time I will weigh in, will be June 10th.  My original goal in all of this

Day... 18? I think? of this challenge I'm doing and so far so good. I've had some missteps, sure, but I'm still doing very well.  I'm still logging everything and making sure my food diary matches what I'm actually eating and weighing/measuring mostly everything. I think that when I weigh in, in 12 days I will be happy with my results. Pants are looser, so that's great! It's such a nice feeling to actually have clothes to wear and not just be restricted to one pair of work pants that kind of fits!  So that's the update on the challenge.  I haven't been running nearly as much as I should be, the reason is super lame. I've been afraid of running for the full 30 minutes, I know, I know.. eye roll. Hear me out though, last year I did this program and then once I got to this point.. I just kind of..stopped. After I finished C25K (for like the 4th time) I didn't continue my training because I just didn't want to put the effort into training

It's been 13 days so far since I started this challenge and I have to say, I feel good. I have had two slip ups in 13 days and considering my track record before, I'd say that's pretty good! I desperately want to weigh myself, but I won't. I am going by feeling.. my pants are all looser, I was walking around yesterday and felt like they were falling off! Even my running leggings are loose, which is hard to get to that point haha. Also maybe TMI but  my undergarments are all loose as well and THAT is weird to me..but it means progress! I'm on week 8 of C210K and while I haven't run as much as I would like to I've still been doing really, really well with my training. I ran for 28 minutes on Saturday and it was hard, but I did it! I've been logging every day, even on the hard days. It's helped so much. I've even been weighing my food and measuring way more than I did before so that's great!  Now onto the Marathon.  I was really excited but

Today is day 5 of the 30 day challenge (technically 31, but 30 day sounds better ;) ). I've been doing very well, I've gotten 3 runs in out of 5 days, which is good! I also had very productive days on Saturday and Sunday (the two days I did not run) so I was constantly moving. My eating has been going very well, I've been SUPER conscious of what my calories are and trying to stay within range which I've done just about every day so far. These are excellent steps and I'm feeling very positive, I'm kind of playing a game with myself by saying "only 30 days, you can do this for 30 days" the hope is that by the end of the 30 days, I'll be so used to it that I can just keep going.  My running has been going well, I'm up to 25 minutes straight and it's hard but not as hard as it used to be. This morning I kept saying "If I can get to that point ahead of me, I'll take a break" then when I got to that point I just kept going. It doe

I had a revelation of sorts today, I stepped on the scale, shook my head and stepped off. I was frustrated with it, I hate those numbers. I started thinking about it and remembering to some of my friends who had been talking about leaving the scale out of the equation and how it has helped them. I've been obsessed with the scale for as far back as I remember, the numbers meant two things to me: Fat or skinny. Happy or sad. So I started thinking of the best way to help myself and to get where I want to be and I decided to challenge myself. I've been in multiple challenge groups over the past two years and they just don't work for me. I decided to give myself a challenge instead and obviously my blog is where I'll hold myself accountable as I've done for so long.  So, here's my challenge:  1.)No scale for 1 month, I will not look at the scale until May 7th. This will be hard for me, the scale is a habit and I feel like I NEED it to validate my success or failu

I went back to work after having my son 2 years ago in February, I had to buy new pants because all of my work pants were size 8 ( lol). I bought two pairs of pants that were a size 16. I hated those pants, every time I put them on I would cry a little because they were tight. They were the biggest size I've ever worn, even when I was pregnant, I was still between a 12-14 (those were maternity pants though and let's be honest towards the end all I wore were leggings or yoga pants anyways).  I thought I'd never get out of those pants. I thought I'd never get back on track and that I'd still be wearing them. Well,  I was looking through my memories on Facebook this morning and one of the memories from today was that I had put those pants away one year ago. It makes me happy. I put on a pair of size 14 pants this morning and they are so big that I can pull them up and down without even unbuttoning them. I'm back to a size 12 and even there it's between a size

I know the title of this post is incredibly cheesy, I'm incredibly cheesy. Like we're talking melted queso cheesy. Cheesiest cheeseball there ever was, right here. Party of 1. I'm pretty sure my husband did not know the lengths of my cheesiness before he married me, oh well, he's stuck now. Though after 8 years, he's used to it. I think. Anyways.  Moving on because if I keep talking about cheese I'm going to need to eat cheese.   I went out for my first run in about 3..ish weeks today, I was nervous for a few reasons, I hadn't run in awhile, I've been super sick and my asthma has been killing me lately. I brought my inhaler which I usually never do on a run (and actually had to use it, so good thing). This session was 5 minutes of running, 3 minutes of walking, 8 minutes of running, 3 minutes of walking and 5 minutes of running. The first 5 minutes felt easy, I was going really really slowly but I was into it. After that I had a cramp, but was still

So I haven't been doing my best lately, I've been slacking big time on counting calories and getting my work outs in, I know, I know typical. Well despite that I've lost weight. I don't know if it's this horrendous virus that has run through my house or what, but either way, I'm not going to take that for granted. I'm getting back on track so that I don't gain it all back. The hardest part for me is disruption to my routine, I have so many excuses lately "I'm sick" "I didn't go into the office so I can't go into the gym" blah blah blah. Well we've had a very mild winter here so I can't really use weather as an excuse, I've run in the cold and wind before and been fine. Just need to keep my inhaler with me. Being sick is definitely a valid excuse, though. I've seen studies on both sides "exercising while sick gets you better sooner!" or "exercising while sick makes you even sicker" I choo

I hit my 100 day mark on MyFitnessPal this morning when I logged on. I'll be straight with you, about 75% of that was me just logging on and not actually putting my food in, that last 25% though is what matters most to me though. I've been faithfully logging my calories (give or take a few days here and there) and exactly what I eat. Has it helped? Absolutely. It's kept me on top and kept me motivated, held me accountable for what I'm eating and put it right in my face why I haven't been losing weight. I haven't weighed in for 2 weeks but I'm planning on doing it on Monday to see how it's going. Next week will be tough, I'm in NYC for work for a day and that usually means eating on the go and grabbing dinner somewhere that may not be super healthy. Plus, how can I go to NYC and not get a bagel or a slice? Come on now.. I'll do my best but I'm not going to torture myself.  Anywho. I've been doing really well with running too, I started w

I went for a run today, I mean it is 55 degrees out at the end of February, I kind of had to.  This is week four day two of C210K (which is basically c25k and c210k combined). So, this week is you run for 3 minutes, walk for 90 seconds, run for 5 minutes, walk for 3 minutes, run for 3 minutes, walk for 90 seconds and then run for 5 minutes.  So basically two of each time segment and it seemed like it would be easy, nope. That's just a big fat nope. I did stop twice on this run for about 20 seconds, I just felt like I was going to completely pass out and convinced myself I had to. It helped and I was able to push through, but I'm still a bit disappointed that I stopped at all. Anyways, in the last 5 minute run interval I really was struggling. I decided to run through the park which was uneven and uphill (this was not my smartest idea), I had about 90 seconds left of running and I really just wanted to stop. I was having such a big argument with myself about it in my head. Then