Healthy Mom, Healthy Family! (AKA Happy Mom, Happy Family)

The below pic is me in Vegas after 4 months of hard work and eating healthy...the unexpected bonus was that it changed my life for the better!

These are things I know to be true (for me) about how to stay healthy and therefore happy...

1) Eat mostly unprocessed, whole foods...and lots of veggies and fruit.

2) Make sure you eat enough healthy fats (olive oil, almonds, avocado, salmon...)

3) A protein shake in the morning boosts metabolism while satisfying hunger.

4) It's all about portion control and balance

5) Fake sugar is the devil

6) I will ALWAYS feel good after exercising

7) When it comes to exercise, high intensity short interval workouts are the optimum bang for the buck (and you can do them anywhere with no equipment!)

8) Extreme diets are unsustainable and don't work.

9) 80%-20% principle: 80% of the food you eat should be healthy but the 20% gives you some wiggle room

10) Get lots of sleep!

Optimom Fitness

Playing around with some ideas found here:

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2011/09/29/8-steps-to-getting-what-you-want-without-formal-credentials/#more-6103

I ordered a few books and intend to begin the process.

UGH.

OK: This weekend started off fun but unhealthy. Drinks and dinner friday night and finished with KFC and carby snacks. I feel very meh right now. Time to get back into the healthy eating. I think I need to go with a more "cheat meal" approach than a cheat day approach. I really feel my body pay for it afterwords.

Here is a great post on healthy clean eating on Lauren's fitness blog. She talks about how to eat to get a shredded body. Pretty good stuff. I still swear by having protein in the morning and HIIT workouts replace boring lengthy gym routines.

I think my winter workout schedule will be 3x/week with an extra workout for holiday party or thanksgiving day damage control. ;) During the spring and summer I will move it up to 4-5 days per week with extra cardio. I will continue to low(er) carb eat and try to include more veggies and fruits but I am not going to be too strict with my diet.

Changing Blog Focus...from now on this will chronicle my health journey...

Having fun with the hubs in Vegas... I felt like I was at near-optimum as far as body composition (for me!) and I just felt great! (However, after -Vegas is a whole different story...1 1/2 weeks later I still have a cold! All that food, alcohol and partying got to me...moderation is the key, but usually not for us while in Vegas!)



So...I worked out and ate right for about 2 months HARD CORE so that I would look good in Vegas. It worked: I felt great and everyone said I looked great. But the best thing about it was that I learned that working out and eating right actually made me feel better physically and emotionally. So...my new plan is to continue working out with Bodyrock.tv 3 days per week and to eat more fruits and veggies and less refined carbs...still have 1-2 cheat meals per week...moderation, moderation, moderation!

I want to have more flexibility with my diet so to do that I can always add an extra day or two of working out if I feel like I need a boost. Working out also helps me refocus my diet so it's a win-win for me. I have never felt "bad" after working out~!

My new weight goal will be 145-150. I feel as though this is perfect for my body without getting too skinny.

Before Pic...Monday July 25

Comments: Well....not completely awful but the muffin top has to go and the thighs need more toning for sure. I will keep taking weekly progress pictures to help with this journey.

Nachos: It's What's for Breakfast.

So, it was one of those nothing-sounds-good-to-eat mornings around here...the kind that have been all too common of late.

I started off the morning healthily enough with a bowl of cereal and rice milk. Then I had to take the kiddo to school and stay for his class' Mother's Day presentation (very cute, they sang, "I Am a Pizza.")

By the time I got home I was STARVING. And still, nothing sounded good. Even worse: the thought of most food was making me ill. I glanced down at the cheese in the fridge and thought, "Nachos. I could handle that."

And they were gooooooooddddddddd. Nachos for breakfast. I'm just saying: try it sometime.

On another note, I had my first prenatal appointment today and got to have an ultrasound and find out my due date, yay!!

So, I am 10 weeks, 2 days along. My due date is December 1!! I got to see the little heart beating and hear it- such sweetness to my ears.

I really like the midwife I met today and scheduled all my visits with her. She was really nice and easy to talk to.

So, I sent Chris to get sushi because she said it was ok (as long as the restaurant doesn't have a "B" rating or something). I am craving salmonnnnnnnnnn....

Day 1 of blog

Beginning (at ~6 weeks gestation) of blog stats:

Height: 5' 10"
Weight: 148ish (I love our scale because of it's innacuracy!)
Skin: hideously hormonal
Outlook: anxiety about self as person/parent but dealing
Book Reading: Eat, Pray, Love


So, this will be a food diary for my pregnancy. By my own estimate I am somewhere around 6 weeks pregnant. I have been having very weird food cravings and aversions and thought it would be funny to be able to look back and see how insane my pregnancy food diary looks. So, here we go!**

It's 1030am here and so far today I have eaten:

cinnamon roll french toast (yes, I actually cut up a cinnamon roll and made FT out of it! Yummtastical!)

a banana with peanut butter

an eggo with PB

large plate of hash browns fried in butter and oil

1/2 mandarin orange

Whew!

So, it's hard to explain why I am eating this way, even to myself. The best I can do is that I feel "eh" about most foods right now. Foods I previously loved (bagels and cream cheese, etc.) make me nauseous just thinking about them. And foods I normally could care less about I crave.

I have to say, I finally understand the whole, "Pickles and Ice Cream" thing. I really do.

**Disclaimer: Although this looks like an incredibly bad dietary start to a pregnancy, let me assure you that I do get exercise every day, I take my prenatal and iron supplement, and I try very hard to work some fruits and vegetables into the mix. Sometimes, thought, even the thought of broccoli makes me want to puke.