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Last week was tough for me. I felt like I was working so hard and I just needed a break. Since I was out most evenings, I grabbed fast food for dinner. Somehow, I managed to squeeze in midweek run. But, by Sunday I looked and felt like I ate burgers, pizza and nachos all week. I even went as far as picking up a bottle of diet pills. I picked them up, but I put them back down, when I remembered how I tried fat burner pills in college and my eye became swollen shut as an allergic reaction and I had to call off work. I also know I’m not really going to swallow 8 giant pills a day. “What am I going to do?” I asked my sister. She said track Points and go to WW meetings. I was glad she was there to help snap me out of my madness. Sometimes I just get so tired of being fat. It’s mentally and physically draining. But, at the end of the day, the secret to weight loss is no secret at all. It’s Eat Less and Move More. I decided to look at the Biggest Loser website for motivation. They had a section about making SMART Goals.
S = Specific goals
M = Measurable goals
A = Attainable goals
R = Realistic and Relevant goals
T = Timely goals
Specific and measurable means that you can evaluate whether or not you have reached the goal by answering yes or no. Action based means that you can see yourself doing it. Realistic means you have the skills, knowledge, and tools to make it happen. Rewarding means you find it exciting and valuable. And time based makes it closed-ended, so you can’t continually delay the start or move the finish line. All aspects of SMART goals are important to achieving positive expectations. But the most influential is the “R.” Setting realistic and yet rewarding goals is a balancing act. If you make them achievable, but they fail to create a fire inside you, they fall flat. For instance, a goal of walking 20 minutes three times per week may be achievable, but may leave you feeling like it’s just not enough.
Finding the balance requires self-acceptance. Acceptance allows you to move forward from a place of caring and self-worth. And contrary to what most people believe, wanting to change or improve does not reflect a lack of acceptance. In fact, the exact opposite is true. No lasting change can take place without it.
Acceptance is an understanding of your strengths and your limitations, and when you have it, you don’t underestimate your power or the task at hand. And you will be able to set your goals just outside of your comfort zone, so they can be reached.
Of course I’ve seen and heard about SMART Goals a hundred times during my weight loss journey. But there was something that stood out to me. They mentioned that having goals like losing 10 pounds before your reunion can be a GOOD thing. I was always taught that those types of goals were “bad” because they were temporary and don’t focus on long-term behavior changes. But, on the contrary, this article said if you give yourself enough time like one month instead of the week before the reunion, that’s actually a great motivator. Once you reach that goal, you can set a new one. I got all excited and said I’m going to lose 40 pounds before I go to Mexico in July! And then I remember the “R”, that’s not realistic. However, training for my 5K in June is a great example of setting a good SMART goal. There is a predetermined distance set out on a specific date that you have to train for in a specific period of time, and your successes is measured by your finish time, and in my eyes simply crossing the finish line.   I’ll continue to focus on that goal.  So, before you set a goal to lose 50 pounds, try to come up with SMART goals that are realistic and achievable.

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• Eating Less and Moving More
• A Hail of a Prom Date Night

I went up to the indoor track at the gym and finished my last day of Week 1 of the couch to 5K. It felt good to accomplish that. It felt even better to run past the skinny girl on the track. I don’t know why, even if it was just for 60 seconds, I feel great when I run past a skinny person. When it got hard, I just reminded myself that I walked 13 miles in the scorching heat, so certainly I can run 8 little intervals. It was a tough run, I’ll probably need to throw in an extra day before moving on to week 2.  After the gym, I showered and got dressed for my date at the Emperors Palace Upscale Asian Buffet. The food was good, but I got my braces tightened the day before so eating was quite difficult. During dinner, I learned more about his family and asked crazy questions like “what would do if your girlfriend smacked you for forgetting her birthday?” He passed my test by saying he wouldn’t forget her birthday, and that he would rather talk it out than get physical. I also told him he didn’t ever have to worry about me slapping him, it was just a hypothetical question to see how he handles difficult situations….  I also found out that he is a runner. How cool is that?! At the end of the night he gave me a sweet kiss on the forehead and we planned date number three! Yay! He always lets me plan, and I like it! I’m a planning freak, and he’s easy going, so it works. Although, he has vetoed some of my suggestions, which makes him nice enough to let me choose, but he’s not too wimpy to say no. We have a good balance.
Saturday was my little sister’s Senior Prom night. Can you believe she is a Senior? She’ll be graduating in a few weeks and leaving for college in August. What am I gonna do when she’s gone??? *sigh* We were a little nervous because a tornado and hail storm was coming through town as she got dressed.  Unfortunately Big Little sister’s brand new car got plummeted with golfball and softball sized hail. 
My Mama made my sister’s dress, and she was gorgeous. I did her make-up. Her date was her was great guy that she’s been friends with for years. My WHOLE family was there, including grandparents, aunts and uncles; my family is so over the top.  They had a blast and she had a fun night with memories that will last a lifetime.

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If you remember a couple days ago I said I might have a hot date. Well, I did! We went to dinner and a movie, he was quite the gentleman and paid for everything. We met on an online dating website so I hadn’t seen him in person. “You look taller than 6’2” I said. He admitted that although his profile says 6’2, he’s actually closer to 6’3”. I thought that was really funny, because my profile says that I am 5’4”, but I’m really closer to 5’3”. Why did we both lie about an inch??? LOL. I’ve dated tall guys before; I just have to walk faster…. Things went well, and we have another date planned for this weekend… Oh! I almost forgot the funniest part. Before the date, I called my sister to give her his stats, just in case he was a psycho internet killer, and my niece overheard her say that I was going on a date. And she asked “Is Auntie going on a-nutter date??” “Yes” her mom replied, and then my neice started counting “one, two, three, four….” and kept counting as if she was counting all the dates I had been on. It was hilarious, Me and my big little sister laughed and laughed, who knew that she even paid attention? Kids say the darndest things!

My Random Thoughts...

• A Delicious Walk
• When Life Gives You Lemons…Become a Fitness Instructor?
• 2 Miles 2 Errands
• The Writing’s On the Wall

If you remember a while back I wrote a post about the weight loss benefits associated with drinking green tea daily. Well if you’re still drinking green tea (I am), I found a great new way to spice it up a little. I found Bigelow Green Tea with Pomegranate. It’s delicious with all the same great antioxidants as regular green tea, but added sweetness of pomegranate. I brewed it, iced it, and added Splenda for sweetness. Great taste, zero points.

My Random Thoughts...

• Unplugged
• I Don’t Recommend It
• Weight Watchers Weigh-In Week 2
• “How Are You Feeling Today Champ?”

So, what the heck is a Warrior Machinist? I have no idea, it’s something silly that I made up to sound cool and interesting. LOL. You all know I have been slacking in the fitness department; a walk at lunch here, a dance party on my Xbox Kinectthere.  My family really started to get on my case. My parents are uber concerned about my health, and my little sister started going to the gym without me. I told her that the next time she went, I was determined to go with her. I tried to be as prepared as possible. I had my hair tie, my iPod, Nike+ , my Yurbuds, my Waist Trimmer Belt and my sports bra. She picked me up when she got off her after school job and we went to the gym. I started on the elliptical machine. We pedaled for 30 minutes while watching The Big Bang Theory on TV. It’s my best friend’s favorite show. I always thought it was too weird to have a show about socially awkward nerds, but that show was hilarious. I laughed out loud several times and didn’t care who heard me. After the elliptical I moved on to the treadmill. I searched for my name under Artist on my iPod and played Week 1 of the Couch to 5K. I’ve heard it so many times that I said every word right along with my recorded voice. For that first 60 second interval run, I really pushed it at a level 5. Then my chest hurt, my head hurt, my back hurt. I decided to take it down a notch especially since I had just finished 30 minutes the elliptical. You have to push yourself, but you also have to listen to your body. In hindsight, I should have run first. But, I still completed each interval with a wog (walking and jogging) instead of a run. Then I heard BBD’s Poison and I knew I was almost at the end of the training session.  Finally, I completed the last interval “run” of Week 1. I was ready to go home, but my sister had this crazy 900 calories burn goal. So, she moved on to the step machine. I just watched her for a few minutes, I was exhausted. Then I felt silly just watching, so eventually, I got on the new Recumbent Bike. The seat was super soft and comfortable. I pedaled with my arms and legs for 19 more minutes. I forgot to turn on my Nike+ to track my distance on the treadmill, I was upset because I wanted to show you guys a pretty picture with my charted distance. But, instead you get a sweaty exhausted no makeup pic of me on the bike. I hobbled out to the car, in my tank top soaked with sweat feeling like a Warrior Machinist for conquering 3  different machines at the gym. I reminded myself that I often regret not working out, but I’ve never ever regretted a workout once I was finished.

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I was visiting Roni’s Weigh and saw a cool post called When I Was a Kid.  I pour my guts out to you guys a couple times a week, but you probably don’t know much about my childhood, so…here goes!

1. My parents told me… My Daddy told me, you can be anything you want to be, a doctor, a lawyer or an Indian Chief . He also said “nothing is free child.” My mom always said, “Be sweet” and as I got older, she would say “Be Sweet, and if you can’t be sweet, be careful!” LOL
2. I wanted to grow up to be a…Lawyer. ..I turned out to be a awesome Paralegal with no desire to be a lawyer. Although in Kindergarten I wanted to be a ballerina or a postal carrier.
3. I refused to eat… Spinach or Brussels Sprouts. Now, I think Spinach is great! I’m still scared of Brussels sprouts.
4. My favorite thing to do outside was… Play hide and go seek across the neighborhood. Back in the 80’s, kids could freely roam the neighborhood.
5. I broke my…Collar bone twice, once in preschool when a boy accidentally did a Michael Jackson kick in my direction and in 3rd Grade while trying to turn and hands-free flip on the monkey bars… My mom banned monkey bars, and I haven’t been on them since.
6. I liked to wear… whatever my Mom picked out, it made life easy.
7. My parents always… made sure we had all of the things we needed and most of what we wanted.
8. I thought that Santa was… super cool, and quite talented to make it around the whole world in one night .
9. My favorite cartoon was… Animaniacs and TaleSpin

10. I was the… The tallest in every class until 5th grade, the doctors said I would grow to be 6 feet tall. I now stand the same as I did in 5th grade, a whopping 5’3 and a half.
11. I got in trouble when… I never really got in trouble, I liked being a good kid, but one time I did accidentally set the bathroom on fire. I sat a candle on the back of the toilet and a plastic plant caught fire. I was so scared that I closed the door and didn’t tell anyone….bad idea.
12. My bedroom was… messy with Michael Jackson Posters on the wall…not much different today except the posters are in my home office.
13. My favorite food was…Cake. I even wrote a book in 4th grade called “The Cake”

14. My parents always made me…do my homework and wash the dishes. And do boy stuff like cut the grass because I didn’t have any brothers. $5 for cutting the backyard, and $3 for the front.
15. My first crush was… On a boy named Rickey Cravens in 5th grade, he had hazel eyes, and all the girls would stand by the fence to catch a glimpse of him getting off the school bus.
16. My favorite toy was… My cassette player with the clear plastic and you could see all the moving parts inside.
17. I thought school was… Easy.
18. My biggest fear was… Heights, it still is, but claustrophobia is a close runner up.   If you want to see a crazy scene, get me stuck in a revolving door.
19. My favorite story was… I loved to read and still do! Actually, I was wrong earlier, I would get in trouble for sneaking and reading late at night when I was supposed to be in bed asleep. But, any way, my favorite stories were, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (duh, I like food), and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and this book called The Rats of Nimh (Highly intelligent Rats conducted experiments to boost their knowledge to human level)…and this book called the Liver Cookies , when I first learned what an entrepreneur was, and knew I wanted to be one!
20. My favorite memories…I was blessed with a happy drama free two parent family home. I remember seeing my parents all dressed up for a night on the town. I remember my jazz, tap, ballet concert and getting to wear makeup. Playing Barbies with my sister and eating fresh strawberries out the neighbor’s backyard. Christmas mornings, and getting my 1st fish tank. Having a summer birthday which made for great pool parties. Babysitting to make money at age 10. Disney World’s Epcot center on a family vacation… I have too many to name.

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Hey Y’all!  I’ve been buried in tax papers.  I felt guilty anytime I did something other than work on preparing them.  I finally meet with my accountant tonight to file them.  Whew!… I am not a number’s type of girl and this stuff stresses me out to no end.  But, luckily its almost over…(until next year.)  I’m more organized than I’ve ever been. I literally had shoe boxes full of receipts.  Now, I have labeled folders and envelopes and spreadsheets!

Anyway, I’m alive and well and even have a hot date on my calendar next weekend…Well, I’m not sure how “hot” it really is, but its a date!  Lol.  As far as food is concerned, I’m still cookie free and soda free.  My knees feel better already, soda is so BAD for your knees.  But, nonetheless, I  gained weight at the WW weigh in.  It wasn’t unexpected though, because I wasn’t keeping track of my food points.  Unlike taxes, losing weight is simple math

Eat +Tracking = Loss  & Eat – Tracking = Gain.

Hopefully without nightmares of receipts and missing the tax filing deadline swirling in my mind, I can focus on healthy eating.  I tracked breakfast and lunch today…so it’s a start.

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WW Dulce de Leche

OMG!  One of my new favorites is Weight Watcher’s Dark Chocolate Dulcé de Leche Dessert Bar.  It’s truly delicious!  It’s not like “oh its tasty for a diet ice cream.”  It’s just plain ‘ol good caramel ice cream dipped in chocolate with the added bonus of being a healthier choice.  Each bar weighs in at only 3 WW points plus.  For the non-weight watchers,  that’s, 120 Cals, 4.5 Fat, 19 Carbs, 2 Fiber, 2 Protein. These are a must have for summer.  Even my sister who hates “diet food” asked my Mom to buy some for their house.*

* I was not paid by Weight Watchers to endorse this product, but maybe they’ll see this post and pay me for the next one! LOL

My Random Thoughts...

• 2 for 1 Special
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Just a fun story I wanted to share…For months, billboards simply branded with the name Cavalia and a picture of a glowing white horse have taken over the city. Sometimes there would be 4 signs in a row. Most of us were trying to figure out, “What is Cavalia?” The producers of the show try to add a classy mysterious vibe to it, but it’s essentially Cirque du Soleil with horses. My niece said “I wanna see the horsies” every time she saw a billboard, which was approximately every 2 minutes while riding in the car. You know I always jokingly say kids make me itch, but since my honey bunny wanted to go, I wanted to take her. Plus, I wanted to see what all of the hype was about. My sister said my niece woke up at 6 AM asking if it was time to go see the horsies.  She told her the horses were asleep, and that she should be too! LOL!
I showed up a little before two in the afternoon. I know most of her food allergies, but Mommy aka my Big Little Sister briefed me on the asthma inhaler. We rode the Metrolink train downtown to avoid expensive downtown parking and heavy traffic. My Niece was so freaking excited. She had never been on a train before. 

When we got off the train there were all these little white seed thingys that had fallen off the trees and were covering the stairs. She has a weird phobia of fuzzy furry stuff and these little things fell into that category. She would not walk up the stairs, she didn’t want them to touch her. “That scares me!” she screamed.  I had to carry her up steep stairs to street level. We walked the easy 2 blocks to the tent where the show was to be held, carefully avoiding the scary white things.   She screamed “My horsies!” when she saw the horse posters along the fence. She wanted to hug and kiss all of them. I told her she could hug, but not kiss (yuck). It was too cute.

We had a few minutes before show time, and they warned that there was no admittance once the show began. “Do, you need to go potty?” I asked. “ Nope.” she replied. As we climbed the stairs to our seats, about half way up I asked again. She said confidently “No.” When we made it to our seats, just before we sat down, I asked one last time, “Are you sure you don’t need to go to the bathroom?” “NO!” she screamed like I was an idiot for asking again. I almost felt dumb for asking again. She did say no twice already. We sat down for 5 minutes and observed the stage and the preshow horse facts displayed on the screen. Then she said, “Auntie, I gotta go pee-pee.” “REALLY?” I exclaimed. “Yes” she calmed replied like it was no big deal. If you asked me before I would think something like that would really irritate me, but it didn’t. She’s just a little person who doesn’t know any better. I grabbed her up and ran down the stairs, across the parking lot to the trailers with the bathrooms inside. Only 5 minutes until the show was to start. To my surprise the stalls were really nice, and reminded me of a hotel bathroom, they even had wood doors and floors, and real sinks.

We finished and I raced back to our seats carrying her, while she declared that she wanted to walk. We made it back just in time. I was sweating and breathing hard after running through the parking lot and taking the stairs twice. The show started just a minute later. It was beautiful but, she couldn’t see, because she’s so short. She sat on my lap the whole show. She had a $50 seat and never sat in it… I observed other parents doing the same. I guess that’s how it works. It was such a learning experience to me. I was so glad that I brought Skittles candy to keep her entertained when she got bored. I could give them to her 1 at a time when she got antsy. She loved the show, but I think you have to be at least 13 to appreicate the work put into it. One of my favorite parts was the mirror scene. There was a lady on a horse and another lady in an identical horse. They did a whole scene as if it were a mirror image reflection of the other. I can’t imagine the training required to do that.  Intermission came at the right time because she started asking for her Mommy. She was fine after she saw the posters again and got the popcorn she requested. Later as we were nearing the grand finale, she said “Auntie, I gotta boo boo.” “What? Can you hold it for a minute” I asked. “No.” she said. “You have to go, right now?”
“Now” she reinforced. We packed up the snacks ten minutes before the end of the show for another bathroom trip. Luckily, I packed a toilet seat liner in my purse the day before. I wasn’t totally unprepared for the 3 year old experience. I considered just going home after the potty break, but then decided to walk to the front of the tent and stand to watch the end.  I explained the potty situation to the attendant and he was really nice and let us sit in the front row! We watched the last 5 minutes with falling snow, flying acrobats and running horses only a few feet away from the action. On the walk back to the train station she saw more scary white things. I fearlessly stomped on a pile of them and told her they were like flowers. She was skeptical but touched some with the tip of her shoe. She realized they weren’t harmful, and wanted to stop and stomp on all 900 million of them on the walk back. She was well behaved, no tantrums until we got off the train and she realized the day was coming to an end. She attempted to fall out on the train platform. I told her that was dangerous and that the train would run her over if she didn’t get up and that Mommy was waiting on us. She hesitantly got up and walked (if you call that walking). But as soon as we were on safe ground she fell out again. Wouldn’t that be funny as adults if we didn’t like something we just collapsed and fell to the ground moaning and complaining? LOL! I might try it…or not…. Mommy and my cousin saved the day by swooping her up from the sidewalk and carrying her to the car. Crisis averted. I had a ton of fun spending time with her and learned that you don’t ask about the bathroom, you just go. And one of the great mysteries of my Dad always annoyingly making us “try to go” even if we didn’t have to pee suddenly became crystal clear.

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