She Did What?!

I ate a kid's meal from Wendy's last week! That is correct. I had a cheeseburger, French fries, and swapped my drink for a Frosty. You know what though... I do not regret it for one minute. It was tasty and satisfying.

I love eating in a healthy manner. It makes me feel good on the inside and strong on the outside, but sometimes you just want to eat something different. I just wanted a burger, I did not want anything else. I have learned that if I fill that void with what it truly wants in moderation then I am normally satisfied and I am not like a hungry bear searching for something to satisfy my cravings.

I had been running like crazy last week preparing everything for an upcoming business trip, celebrating our soon arriving wedding anniversary (7 years!), visiting grandparents, and still trying to stay on point with food. That running sure helped me hit my steps everyday, but my anticipation of only having one rest day ended up as two when I did not get home until ten one night.





My exercise for last week looked like this:
Monday: Elliptical for 35 minutes in the evening, burnt 482 calories
Tuesday: Body Sculpting Class. burnt 466 calories
Wednesday: Elliptical for 30 minutes in the morning, burnt 415 calories
Saturday: Jillian Micheal's "No More Trouble Zones"


My food last week was good except Thursday when I had a half price milk shake from Sonic. I enjoyed it, but at the of my enjoyment guilt slipped in and I was like I should have gone for the small and not a medium. You live and learn, in the past one slip up meant two days of slip ups. I would convince myself that I would just postpone my diet, eat whatever I wanted for a couple of days and get it out of my system. I would be cured! That never worked. Then I learned to wean that down to a day, but that was still bad because I would eat whatever I wanted to the point that when I woke up I felt horrible. Now, when I slip up it is for a couple of hours and I let it stay that way. I do not give myself a whole day of splurging, instead I eat a healthy breakfast and lunch then I try to eat that splurge in moderation or with something healthy on my plate. So our anniversary dinner was onion rings for appetizer with bread, I then selected grilled Mahi Mahi and braised spinach for my dinner. I did not like the braised spinach so I did not eat more than three bites. The milkshake is what killed it for me though. I had like 200 calories left and we all know that that milkshake had five times that amount.


In the near future I will be going out of town and I love to travel. I love the sights, I love the experiences, and I love the food. That is my downfall! I would really love to see the 150s before summer ends and if I want to I am going to have to stay on point with everything else! In the past I have tried not to eat into my exercise calories, but on active days I am starving if I only eat the 1,500 calories I allot myself. (I used to try to eat 1,200 calories until a nutritionist educated me, how did I ever do that?!) So I am going to try to up my intake to 1,600 calories max and see how that goes.

With all that in mind are my goals for this coming week:
Sunday- Rest
Monday- Elliptical
Tuesday- Elliptical w/strength
Wednesday- Elliptical
Thursday- Rest
Friday- Strength
Saturday- Cardio

Step Goals: 10,000 bare minimum
Food Goals: select healthy and enjoyable options
-log everything regardless if I go over
- try for a deficiency

What are your goals for this month?

Love,
Jamie Lynn

Motivation

Some days I think about giving up and throwing in the towel. Eating whatever I want. Watching TV or napping instead of working on the arm bumps. Some days I think it will be okay if I do not achieve my goal, I could be happy eating whatever I want or not working on slimming down. I would rock the curvy body again.

 

Then I think about when I started, I can remember going to get a pedicure with my Southern Sister and putting on one of the only pair of capris that I had that fit me and one of my husband's black t-shirts because my weight had gotten that high. I felt miserable, I was lacking all confidence, and I was willing to do anything to not feel that way. Do I want to go back there? No!

 

I do not feel that my beauty hinders on a perfect scale number, but I know that as the scale number goes down and as my arms become more sculpted my confidence goes up. As my runs become quicker and longer, my confidence hangs around more. When I have to buy new clothes, I get excited and no longer dislike taking photos of myself or looking in the mirror.

 

Would I want to give all this up to be able to gorge myself on whatever I want? No, because it makes me feel miserable when I do and for days after. My body actually seems to function better at the 1,500 calories that I try to consume everyday.

 

Do I screw up sometimes and overeat? Yes! But I get back on the horse and try again.

Do I get frustrated with the fact that it has taken 2 years and I am still not to my goal weight? Yes!

But then I look at pictures like this...

 

May 2014 (171.8 lbs)           June 2015 (167) 

     There is not much weight difference between the two and maybe there is not much difference between the overall look, but in my honest opinion my stomach looks slimmer and more than a 5 lb difference.

 

So that is my motivation, looking better and feeling better!

 

What is your motivation?

 

Love,

JamieLynn

Weekly Goals

On Sundays I prep all of my food for the week, this one little trick keeps me sane when I have weeks that include:

Ho Cakes and Biscuits at Paula Deen's



Mashed Potatoes, Green Beans, Mac N Cheese, Corn Casserole,
and Cheesy Meatloar @ Paula Deen's

Then the fatty food lover in me went and had to get cupcakes from the Sweet Shoppe of the South, a winner of the Food Network Cupcake War. It was yummy, but I will not hit my weight goals by combining food like this and not hitting my step goals. Try as I wanted last week I was always around 8,000 steps, so sad.

Enough of the negative though....while I feel another crazy week going on I am putting a plan together to help me stay focused this week.

1. Food Prep: Salads with quinoa and chicken, hardboiled eggs, overnight oats, and hummus with snow peas.

5 of everything except the overnight oats, they can only soak up to a max of three days.

2. Exercise Schedule

Monday- Run

Tuesday- rest, stay active

Wednesday- rest, stay active

Thursday- Body Sculpting

Friday- Run

Saturday- Jillian

Sunday- Run

3. Stay under my 1,500 calories everyday and get 10,000 steps in each day.

What are your goals for this week? What are you doing to stay on track?

Love,

Jamie Lynn

Progress Pictures

Hello! It has almost been a year since my last post because life got crazy, so this got put on the backburner. I have decided that blogging helps to hold me accountable and I often get asked how I have lost so much weight. With all of that said I am going to try my best to keep up with the blog much better this summer. Let me get you started with some progress pictures.

210 lbs (June 2013) vs. 167 lbs (June 2015)

210 lbs (June 2013)  vs. 167 lbs (June 2015)

Summer 2013 vs. Summer 2015
 (I wore this black dress in my engagement announcement pictures 8 years ago)

 

It has taken me a while to get here and I am so excited to say that I have only 17 lbs to go before I reach my overall goal of 150 lbs. I have fallen off the wagon a couple of times in the past two years, but I have never gained more than ten of it back when I did and I would quickly get it back off. My goal is that by the end of the summer I am to my goal weight.

 

 

How far have you came since the beginning of your journey? What are your goals for this summer?

 

Love,

 JamieLynn  

Sunday Prep

People are always asking me what I am eating. It has taken me a while to find what works for me. I have tried different methods, different foods, and different "diets". In the beginning I was not getting enough protein and I am currently in the process of increasing it through means that I am comfortable with (I am not into drinks, etc.) After a lot of trial and error I found that it works best for me to do my food prep for lunch, breakfast, and snacks on Sunday night.

I did all of this on last Sunday Night: 1 large bowl of pineapple, 5 servings of cantaloupe, 5 salads, 5 salad toppings, and 5 jars of overnight oats (not pictured).

 

 

I started off by putting frozen chicken breasts in the oven to roast. I season the chicken with onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Then I pour water in the dish, place the lid on top, and bake until it registers 165 degrees Fahrenheit.

I then start the quinoa to cooking. I cook one cup dry quinoa with 1/2 tablespoon garlic powder, 1/2 tablespoon salt, and recommended water amount.

 

While the quinoa is cooking, I like to start fixing salads. I like to keep it simple and buy a large box of the organic salad mix, I divide this box amongst my bowls. These bowls hold 3 cups, so I just calculate that this is 3 cups of salad mix when I count my calories. I then chop up bell pepper and place 1 oz of matchstick carrots on top. That is it, easy! I do add 6 cherry tomatoes the night before when I pack the salad. When the chicken and quinoa is finished I place 1/2 cup cooked quinoa and 3 oz of chicken in a bowl to dump on top of my salad during lunch, below is what my salad looks like when I go to eat it at lunchtime. It is really yummy and satisfying.

 

 

I will then chop my fruit that I will be snacking on, divide it up if needed, and then wipe down the counters.

 

Then I pack my overnight oats. In each jar I place: 1/2 cup of old fashioned oats, 1 stevia packet, and 1 teaspoon psyllium fiber (optional). I do this in 5 jars, just enough to last me through the week.

 

The night before I will be eating them I place 1 cup almond milk in there with 1/2 cup blueberries.

 

In an hour's work I have a week's worth of:

Breakfast- Overnight Oats

Lunch- Salad with Quinoa & Chicken

Snack- Fruit of choice

 

 

What are you doing to help you stay on track with your eating? What works for you? Are you wanting to try one of my ideas for this week.

 

Love,

JamieLynn

 

 

 

Back at it Again! (Progress Picture Included)

Sorry, that I have been gone so long. I had A LOT going on at work, at home, and at me.

We spent one day of my fall break biking The Creeper Trail! I loved it. My backside REALLY hurt the next day, but it was so worth it.

 

I got my hair cut short! I love how easy it is to deal with. I have let it grow out a little bit, but will definitely get it trimmed back up nicely before the beach.

 

I got to see my beautiful Baby C dance in the Russian Ballet's Nutcracker, a once in a lifetime moment.

 

Celebrated my 28th birthday in November with new smaller clothes (I even purchased skinny jeans) and Cheesecake Factory. Yum!

 

In May we celebrated Mr. SB's birthday with Kayaks and Chop House. We are really loving the Kayaks, they are a great way to exercise.

 

We did a whole lot more in there. I planned two field trips and got snowed on. I took some really sweet kids to the TASC (Tennessee Association of Student Councils) and got rained on at Dollywood on a cool spring day. This was a very busy school year and trying to stay focused on my healthy lifestyle was not easy. In December I thought I was crazy because I was feeling sick to my stomach like I had rode amusement park rides all day. My lovely co-workers were all placing bets on when the baby was due. After a visit to the doctor I was informed that I had vertigo. So after one month of not working out and not dieting I had to ensue a second month because of therapy. That vertigo is a bad word, you can select which ever bad word you would like.

 

Well here is a progress picture from May.

I am happy with my results despite not being to my goal.

 

Are you where you want to be? Are you still working toward your goal?

 

 

Love,

Jamielynn

 

 

 

Weekly Weigh-In #3 & #4

I actually started this post last week, but I could not upload pictures, so here it is. Better late than never.
Weekly Weigh-In #3
I actually weighed-in on Monday, but this week has been super crazy. This week was the first week back for teachers and I am exhausted. I could so totally sleep for days. While this week has been crazy and I have not been able to work-out everyday like planned, I rocked it last week and it showed on my scale.

My previous weigh-in was 191.2.

This week's weigh-in was 187.4.

Week 7: 9 pounds gone

Week 16: 22 pounds gone

 

Weekly Weigh-In #4

Despite eating in range everyday I gained 4 oz., due to little working out. My total weight now is 187.8. When am I going to learn that I have to work out to see a difference. I know it but I have just been busy with school back in session. Praying that it will all calm down.

 

How are your weigh-ins going? Are you reaching your goals?

 

Love,

Jamielynn