Got a little off track

I have not been feeling really great and trying to change my schedule for going back to work. On top of that my heater is broken. We have to manually shut it off and turn it on. It gets really hot or really cold. It was 85 degrees in here yesterday then it wouldn't turn on so it got cold before bed. I called today now that it is only like 72 degrees in here. I need to have that fixed because I am not paying a 500 dollar gas bill for the furnace staying on. Plus it is so hot I don't want to get on the treadmill. I was going to get back on track today but with the heater still broken and a bunch of house work that needs done I may be getting back to the treadmill tomorrow. I will be working one day a week until the end of February or beginning of March but then I will be working full time so I will probably only be on the treadmill an hour a day once that starts. I should still loose weight but it won't be as fast as I would like but that is okay.

It is actually easier for me to eat healthy when I am working because I can't snack so much and I have to eat the healthy stuff I take to work with me. I am glad for the work I will be able to buy more audio-books to listen to on the treadmill without feeling any guilt.

I have lost five pounds this month and have had a few more good workout days. I am going to keep track of my workouts and start tracking my food a little more closely. I am going to have to balance out my food better because I have had a few days where I actually crave something full of protein instead of sweets. I am going to have to eat more healthy meats.

Feeling Drained

Well today I do believe I am going to rest, well not rest but I am not going to work out. I said when I started this I would listen to my body and it is telling me that I am working too hard. I am not going to sit here and do nothing all day but I am going to stay off the treadmill. I went to bed at one this morning and didn't wake up until eleven and I still feel tired.

I am torn about this but since I am also still sore it is probably a good idea ......I think. I will work on getting the house cleaned up. Since I go back to work tomorrow to start learning what has changed in my job. My replacement is going to have to start seeing the doctor each week until the end of her pregnancy now that she has only a little over a month until her due date. She will need me to fill in more often and that really makes my day. I will be able to earn a little extra money and be able to have plenty of workout time.

I am going to work on setting some weight loss goals and I think I am going to have to include a day of rest each week for my body to energize. I was thinking that for February I will make that the day I work as I will probably only work one day a week. I also went to the store last night and got some healthier foods. I love having waffles with fruit topping but not for breakfast and lunch everyday. I got some yogurt, peanuts, carrot sticks and salad stuff so I could have veggies and a bit of protein for lunches. Most of those foods will also serve as good snacks if I get really hungry on days I work out a lot.

So I will be back soon with a plan and some short term goals instead of just the goal to loose 40 pounds. That is my big goal and it puts me at 125 pounds which healthy for my size. Once I get there I can work to loose a few more pounds or I can stay there but I don't want to go above that again. For those of you wondering I am a very short very small person and healthy weight for me is between 100 and 130 pounds and I thought 125 was a reasonable weight to start with.

Really Tired Today

Well today I am really tired last night I walked on the treadmill for two hours and ten minutes and did some weight lifting. I am sore and tired but I still want to work out so I am going to do an hour on the treadmill to make sure I keep my motivation up. I have been looking at all kinds of cool tattoo designs too. I love some of the tribal wolf prints I found and some of the wolf paw prints as well as the crosses. I may be getting two tattoos one at my first twenty pounds and another at my second twenty pounds. Who knows I found so many that I like that I don't know what to do. I found an artist I really like at Deviantart and asked if they could design something for me.

I guess we will see when the time comes to make a decision. I really love the tattoo I have of a spider on my back but it is rarely seen. I want something that will be seen more often. I wish I could post some pictures of the art I like but it is something the artist doesn't want so I will respect her wishes. I hope another cup of coffee or two will wake me up so I can get a late start to this day.

Working Out is My New Job

I worked out two hours yesterday afternoon and then again at 10pm I got on the treadmill again for 75 minutes. I went 8.3 miles in all. I have lost 4 pounds now and my clothes are starting to fit better. They are still tight in the stomach but the legs are not tight. I have always lost weight in my limbs first so I am not going to be discouraged by not loosing belly fat right away.

It was nice to hear a lot of the ladies in my small group are getting motivated to loose some weight too. I am going to lunch today with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law and I said I would go if they went somewhere that I could get something healthy. I have to learn to make healthy choices outside the home again I can't stay here forever.

So I will have a salad for lunch today and I have no idea what is for dinner and tonight I will get on the treadmill for another hour or two.

Just Wanted to Say........

2 full hours on the treadmill today! I hardly noticed while I watched Underworld. The treadmill stopped and I turned it back on. Then when it was over I already had an hour and 52 minutes in and thought I would stay on the extra 8 minutes. I walked 5.3 miles today I may or may not lift some weights tonight just depends how tired I am after hanging out with a friend and then small group.

I am going to make getting in shape my job until I go back to work if I can manage to get close to 20 pounds off by then I will be okay to maintain my weight for the few months that I am full time and then kick it up again when I go part time.

Thanks again for the support everyone

Working Hard on The Weight Loss

Okay so I was a little bad yesterday but I think I deserved it. I worked out for 100 minutes which I also plan to do today. I had a cup of coffee with some of the white chocolate syrup we have for making cappuccino's. Not a lot but enough to make it sweet. I was down another half pound this morning even with the sweet coffee.

Jeff thanks for all your comments and I wanted to address your last one. I plan to stop worrying so much about weight as soon as I can see a difference in the way my clothes fit. I have not had to go anywhere since Sunday so I have been wearing sweats or pj's so when I go out tonight I will notice if there is a difference. Until I notice a difference all I have is pounds. I know that when you gain muscle you can actually put on more weight even thought you are loosing fat.

Lucky for me I have sizes ranging from ones all the way to twelves except I don't think I have any sevens. I don't see myself in the ones again but if I work hard maybe the fives. I am not sure how womens sizes work half the time some are odd and some are even and some are just crazy wrong. I have two size 12 pants I fit into right now and three that I don't so I will consider it a half size loss once I can fit into the other three. I was actually fed up because I was starting to feel very uncomfortable in the two pairs of pants I could wear so tonight I will put one of those on and see how I feel.

I know my weaknesses are sweets and being sedentary so now I have to address them. I did a bunch of house work yesterday to keep moving but my mop broke and I did the kitchen on my hands and knees and I really felt that in my leg. So tomorrow it is off to buy another mop I can't be crippled by mopping when I am trying to get in shape. So all my hardwood floors will have to wait, but it will give me something to do this weekend.

Blogging about this helps me keep on track so I will be here as much as possible.

100 Minutes on the Treadmill

The last three days I have been on the treadmill for 100 minutes. My treadmill shuts off at 100 minutes because the timer won't go higher than that. I am feeling rather encouraged because I have lost three pounds since January 6th. I also worked my arms until they were shaky yesterday and I plan to do that every other day and ad some abs to the mix.

I have been eating healthy most days and not too much but I am getting some headaches as I get used to this so I am limiting my time on the computer as it makes my head hurt more. I want to document my journey and I am sure this will get better. I am also very tired and am getting a great nights sleep when I go to bed so I think once I get used to the workout and eating healthier I will feel much better. Getting used to not eating as much and eating lighter foods is that hard part right now because my body seems to want to make up the calories that I work off and I am thinking that is why I have these headaches. They are not migraines so they are not really bad they just make it hard for me to stay on the computer long.

I will be back soon to update you on the weight loss.

Taking Charge Of My Life

First things first I am going to make it to that twenty pounds weight loss and get a great cross tattooed on my wrist. I am looking for Gothic crosses and I want to have it picked out by the time I reach my goal. I will post something that I like here periodically let me know what you think.

This weekend I took a long look at my life and I don't like where I am. I don't even really like myself half the time and I just don't know what to do or at least that was how I was feeling. I have been feeling like I am not in control of anything. I am made the decision to change things the things that I can. I have been focusing on the wrong things I don't think making money will make me feel any better about myself, although that would be nice there are things I need to do first. I am going to go crazy insane about my goal to get in shape.

I have been so afraid of hurting myself again I have been making excuses not to push myself. I am still going to listen to my body but I know the difference between sore and pain and I am just going to have to stop making excuses. I have about a month and a half before I go back to work and I am going to take advantage of that time off to work my butt off literally. I have been doing 60 minutes most days on the treadmill but I did 90 minutes last night around 10pm and 100 this morning about 10am and I plan to either do some more time on the treadmill tonight when my husband leaves for work or lift some weights.

I decided to start with this because I have done it before and when I was a healthy weight it helped me to feel in control. It helped me to feel better about myself and to actually feel good physically. Like I said I am so over trying to be super thin but if I can get to where I feel good again that would be great. I am more confident when I am not so overweight. When I can develop discipline in this area other areas seem to follow. The one thing I remember about when I got thin about 5 years ago was that I worked out a lot and I still got to eat plenty and things I liked except sweets and fried foods. I ate just about everything but in moderation. I like food too much to give up eating normal so I have to work a lot.

So for the next month and a half I will be posting daily about my work out schedule and probably my struggles with eating the right things. Today I will be having the same thing for lunch that I had for breakfast a big whole wheat waffle with homemade blueberry topping.

Still Working Out

I skipped yesterday after six days in a row I needed a rest. I got back on the treadmill today even thought I didn't want to. I have bad cramps but I will survive. I have been careful about what I eat and I bought some animal crackers for when I have something that I can have a handful of if I get the sweet cravings.

I don't know if I have lost anymore weight because I never weight during that time of the month because I am bloated (sorry for my male readers) and I know I am not always my accurate weight then.

On another note my dog cut her paw last week Saturday in the wee hours of the morning. My husband takes her for walks while I am sleeping because he is used to a third shift schedule. She was jumping around and cut her foot. I used to rush my other dog to the vet for this but they always sent me home with instructions to put neosporin on it and try to keep calm. The keeping this dog calm is the hard part. I try to keep it clean and I put stuff on it but it is not hurting her enough to keep her calm. One night she was so wild that she was running from one room to another as fast as she could and she split it open and was bleeding everywhere but it didn't slow her down. We had to put her in her crate for a few minutes to clean the mess and have her calm down. She is doing better now but she is used to one or more hours of walking plus some playing time. She is quite the handful with all this energy. I have been monitoring the healing of this paw since she started letting me touch it to do more than clean it and I am not sure how it doesn't hurt like hell. If it isn't a lot better by Friday she is going to the vet.

Well I hope tomorrow brings a better day for me and my dog until then have a great evening.

Treadmill 5 Days in a Row

I have been on the treadmill everyday since January sixth. I went a half an hour the first day and one hour the next four days. I plan to make it another hour today to make six days. I can't go fast yet but I have been gradually increasing my speed. I went from 2 miles an hour to 2.2 miles an hour and my leg seems to be taking the transition find. I am stiff in the morning and a little sore after the workout but good otherwise. Once I am stronger I can get a better cardio workout. My biggest problem these days is I get to eager to go faster because I feel fine while I am on the treadmill but then I pay later. Not because I am old but because I broke my hip and I have never gotten to a good level of fitness since then. I can't blame my broken hip anymore it has been a little over a year now and it is just my motivation sucks.

What happens is I get ahead of my body and I push too hard then I end up off my feet for days. Then I get stuck in a rut and don't want to try again so I am taking it slow this time even if that means it takes a long time to see visible results. I plan to add some weights or weight bearing exercise a little at a time and model the lower body stuff after some of the things I learned in physical therapy. I used to enjoy working out and now it is painful (if I push too hard) and I am sure that is why it is so hard for me to stay motivated. I seem to have a bit of trouble balancing the motivation I either want to get a move on it and get to work on some goals or not do anything at all. That is a huge character flaw I need to work on and it starts with this area of my life.

Well I have to go get on the treadmill!

Resting my Leg Today and Blogging

Right now I am waiting for my mom and sister to get here. We are all going together to a baby shower. I am listening to Tribes by Seth Godin I have missed a lot so I will probably go through it again. Most of my morning has been spent clicking adgetize ads and dropping EC cards and looking up new pictures for my blogs. I found a few new places to find images and I really loved this one.

I may have some time to work out this evening. I have been staying up later and I might work out later if Ryan doesn't have any plans for us. I have been pretty good about my eating and I hope they have something healthy at the shower today.

I am also hoping to learn something about marketing with the few Seth Godin books I have on audio book as well as the related books but I am much more interested in the fiction books I have.

On a side note I have decided that when I loose 20 pounds I can start thinking about getting a new tattoo as a reward. I think I want a gothic looking cross on my wrist but that is as far as I have thought. I have always wanted another tattoo but could never figure out what I wanted. I got my first one at 18 now I am 32 and have not gotten another one. I love mine but it is only seen when I wear a tank top and even then it is partially covered.

Sitting Here Listening To Dave Ramsey

I am sitting here heating my leg that hurts from two days of one hour on the treadmill. I am listening to the Dave Ramsey podcast from yesterday. I am sore but I am feeling motivated. I went very slow on the treadmill only 2 miles in an hour but I a am sore. I have been lazy and I have to start over again the hip I broke last year is really weak from not working it. I had to stop my cleaning to rest. Sometimes icing helps but heating seems to help more when it is cold, go figure.

I have been eating my healthy breakfast most days. Here is what I eat either french toast on light whole grain bread or waffels or pancakes from Hodgson Mills Whole Wheat Buttemilk Pancake Mix. What makes it amazing to me is that I make my own topping. I use four bags of my favorite frozen fruit. I mix and match today I will be using mango and peach two bags of each. I thaw them and put them in a food processor. I puree them and then throw them in a big pot with a half cup of brown sugar. I cook them on medium heat for about 30-45 minutes. Then I put one third of a cup in in little zip lock containers and freeze them I take out one each night for the next day.

I going to have to rework my food budget so I can eat healthy. I have heard a lot of people say it is cheaper to eat healthy and the only thing I can say for that is NOT. Especially when you live somewhere that gets cold in the winter. Fresh fruit and veggies get really expensive and they don't even taste good. They go bad quickly as well. A lot of the whole grain products are expensive or they taste like crap and many of those have crap like high fructose corn syrup in them. I trust Hodgeson Mills to have natural ingredients.

I am rather disappointed about having to change my budget but I suppose it will be worth it in the end. I want to follow the plan Dave Ramsey out lines in his books. My husband and I are pretty well on our way but there are a few things holding us up. I need a job and will have one for at least two months by March it will be full time. It will be part time after that so I need to find something part time after that. If I could make a few hundred a month at home some how it would be great, I will keep working at it but it doesn't seem possible.

I really want to sell our duplex but the housing market in Toledo Ohio is really bad we have so many foreclosures they are selling houses so cheap. If we didn't have something to sell we would be able to find a great deal but the buyers know that and we can't even sell the house for what we bought it for. We realize we will never recover the money we put into the house but we would like to sell it for what we bought it for. We don't like the whole landlord thing it is a pain in the butt. So my prayers are for the house selling right now. I don't want to try to pay it off right now I just want to save for a good down-payment for a house with a half acre to an acre where we can have another dog and a huge garden. The only debt we have is the duplex so it would really help us if we could sell it but it has been on the market like two years.

When I get back to work we can save all the money I make but we will have a little extra expense because I will have to drive to work so our gas and vehicle maintenance will go up. What we would really like to do is save to pay cash for a house or at least a fifty percent down-payment. We don't really want to look at houses again thought until we sell the duplex then we can decide what we need to have saved.

I Lost Some Weight and Made a Few Dollars

My Work From Home News
I have been using Amazon Mechanical Turk and I have made a few dollars to go toward books. You can also have them send it to your bank account but I just want to use that to support my extreme addiction to reading. It is easy but I learned quickly that you have to be careful what links you click on or you will end up with computer issues. They disable many of the harmful links but don't always catch them right away. I have earned money faster with that than any other method but it is still not much. In a week I have earned about 5 dollars.

In about 6 months I have only earned a little over 17 dollars with adsense and I only earn something reasonable with Adgetize (on my Dark Novels blog) when I post, click and pay for an ad. I might set something up for this blog if I can figure out how to make a better button to click. I might be able to do it myself with a program I have but who knows can hurt to try. I have never made enough to pay for the ad thought. I could if I had the time to click the maximum ads a day and post so if you always have time to do that you should be able to pay for your ad. It is not a bad program and if you have a lot of visits and ad clicks you can make more money. I am going to try to keep up on that a little more and see if it begins to generate more traffic. Right now I need to keep posts on my blogs too.

My Weight Loss News
I weighed myself just before I started this healthy eating plan of mine and I am embarrassed to say I weighed 165. I weighed this morning a little over a week later and I was 163.  I am only going to count it as one pound lost and attempt to wait at least a week to weigh again so I am not so disappointed if it goes back up a little this week. My weight loss goals for this year are to loose (starting at 165) 40 pounds; 125 is a normal healthy weight for me as I am just barely over 5 feet tall. I am hoping for about a pound a week but there is some leeway since there are 52 weeks in a year. I am sure there will be setbacks and stress so that will give me 12 weeks in case I get sick or have to work a ton and can't get on the treadmill. 

I am feeling motivated because I have never been this heavy in my life and I am sick and tired of this weight. I know I will feel a lot better once I loose 15 pounds because I will be able to fit into more that the two pairs of pants I keep washing and sweat pants. I got a hot topic gift card for Christmas and I intend to get a pair of pants when I loose some of the weight.

New Cook Books are Great

So far I have tried a great recipe in this book for Chili Lime Shrimp. It is pretty low calorie and it can be served with a lot of things we were going to eat salsa and chips with it but didn't realize the prep time for the salsa so we ate onion rings. That took away from the healthy but it was that or french fries. I thought it would have a more mexican flavor but it really would have been fine with just about any veggie for a side. I also tried two from my Japanese cook book slightly modifying them but I will post about them later. Much of the time I get cook books to give me ideas.

I am eating chinesse tonight one of those things that has sauce, rice and something else in the box and you just add your own meat and veggies. I have lots of fresh veggies to add.

I also have been lazy because the cold is really hurting my leg and then I have been feeling ill the last few days. I got back on the treadmill today as it is way to painful to walk outdoors with the temps below freezing. I even put the dog on the treadmill for a while.

Check this out

http://easy10seconds.com/

I am trying a new system to make a little cash one of the things I need to do is post some links. I have not tried this site but it sounded interesting. I will not post things that lead me to a bunch of popups and links.