Oops?

Well, I either haven't posted for weeks on purpose or on accident, and I'm guessing it's probably a bit of both.  My family was in town for a week and that took up all of my time, meaning I didn't have time to post OR to focus on being healthy or exercising.  Which is a lame excuse, because if I really wanted to make it a part of my life then it wouldn't matter if I was on vacation or family was visiting or there was a party with tons of great food, etc etc etc.  BUT I'm happy to say that this week, I'm starting to get back on track.  I went running on Monday night, went to the gym for an hour on Tuesday, and went running again on Thursday morning.  That's my 3 times/week minimum, but I did some good workouts instead of just 20 minute chunks, so I'm feeling good about that.

I decided that I'm going to make a gym chart.  I used to have one with an old roommate of mine and we loved putting stickers on it every time we went to the gym.  I know, it sounds childish, but it really does help!  I bought fun sparkly stickers and I'm going to make some rules for myself.  3x/week is the minimum for gym attendance. (Although all the working out doesn't necessarily have to take place at the gym, but at least once a week does.) So when I say "gym attendance" I really just mean working out.  At least once every two month period I'm going to have a "boot camp week" where I have to work out every single day except for Sunday that week.  My goal is to get to the point where I WANT to exercise every single day except for Sunday.  I want to be healthy and in shape and able to walk up a flight of stairs without getting light-headed, haha.  Good goal, right? :-)

Don't worry, I'll post next week, I promise.

Week 5 Update

Alright, I have to be honest.  The last 3 weeks have been...shall we say...iffy?  I have had it in my head that I want to eat less and exercise more.  But executing those thoughts hasn't really happened.  My original goal that I set for exercise was to do it for at least 30 min 3 times a week.  This past week I exercised one time.  Not so great.  AND I have been eating pretty much whatever I feel like.  While I eat pretty healthy on a normal basis, the added goodies I throw in are just too much.  I need to cut down on those!  This week my sister Tiffany came to stay with me.  She is staying for 6 weeks and I'm so excited to have her here!  So, of course this past week was a bit out of control.  We were so excited to be together we were just a bit frivolous.  We just wanted to hang out and do fun things and EAT fun things and just have FUN!  And we did for the entire first week.  And then at the beginning of this week we thought, "Okay, that's enough. Time to be good."  And for the past few days I have been doing pretty well!  I went to the gym today and got a pretty good workout.  It felt great.  I'm determined to be back on track.  Although, I am happy to report that I have not gained any weight for the past 3 weeks, so I have just maintained that 199.6 I weighed in last time I posted numbers.  yay!  That is all.

Week 4 Update

Well, stay tuned for the "health update" next week, I've decided not to write on any of that this week.

On a different note...

I had the opportunity to visit the Manti, Utah Temple yesterday.  I had never been down to Manti before, and I was so excited to get to see this Temple and go inside and serve.  For more information on LDS Temples, click here.  The trip down to Manti was a ward event and we each chipped in a bit of money and were able to get a big charter bus so we could all travel down together.  Manti is about 2.5 hours southish of Salt Lake City (there is a bit of east in there as well).  It was a great time riding the bus with everyone.  We talked and laughed and got to know each other.  As I was sitting there watching everyone converse and have a good time, I was struck with how blessed I am.  I thought about how grateful I am to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I am so happy to be blessed with the knowledge that Christ lives and that if we keep our covenants and try our best, we can live with him again someday. It was amazing to be on that bus, surrounded by other temple-goers that believe in Christ and have a testimony of his Gospel.   I love being surrounded by people who are trying their best to keep their covenants and be the Christ-like people we should be. It's amazing!

When we arrived at the Temple we drove right up to the doors and the driver let us off the bus.  We had some time before our session started, so we were able to walk around the grounds and take in the beauty of the House of the Lord.  I took a few pictures.

Beautiful Temple on the outside, and it was even more beautiful on the inside.  My first thought as we entered was "oh! I so wish I could take pictures inside!"  I guess I'll just have to keep the images inside my mind :-)  It was a very nice session and I so enjoyed being there with everyone.  I love the Temple!

On our way home we stopped for lunch at Wendy's and then headed back to Salt Lake.  When we arrived at home my SISTER was here!  Tiffany is staying with me for about 7 weeks while she is between semesters at BYU-I.  I'm so excited to have her here!  We spent the evening unpacking and finding places for all of her things, grocery shopping so we can actually eat this week (as opposed to last week, haha) and then we took some pizza to Ryan at his last night at his hospital job.  Ryan and Kara and Sammy and Benjy are moving to Wyoming in just a few weeks.  It breaks my heart that they are leaving, I've never not lived by them as long as I've known them.  It's very sad, but I'm also very excited for their new adventure and Ryan's new job teaching Institute. We had a good time eating pizza and talking.  What a wonderful day!

Week 3 Update

Sorry I'm late!  I didn't get a chance to write about last week on Sunday. So let's see, last week. Uh...can we just skip this update?  Last week wasn't the greatest.  But that's how achieving goals goes, doesn't it?  Sometimes we do well, sometimes we falter or step back.  If we didn't we'd be perfect and wouldn't need to set goals in the first place.  Bettering ourselves is hard work, but if we stick to it, it can be done!

Last week I ate a little too much ice cream and cookies and exercised only one day.  I have a little problem with sugar.  I can stay away from fatty foods or even carbs like breads and pasta and rice if I really put my mind to it, but sugar takes ALL of me to resist or cut back on.  So difficult!  So this week, no more cookies and ice cream!  I went to the gym today (Tuesday) and had an excellent workout with my friend Nikki from work.  It was even fun!  I'm excited to go again tomorrow night after work and then most likely Thursday before the farm and possibly Friday after work as well.  That's 4 times!  We'll see if I can make that happen.  If not, at least 3 times is the goal so if I meet instead of exceed my goals that's still great. :)  I hope everyone has a happy week!

Week 2 Update

Another week full of days 1-7, Sunday to Saturday.  I did pretty well with exercise this week.  I went for a 30-40ish minute walk on Tuesday night, went running on Thursday morning (and by "running" I mean run 1 minute, walk 2 minutes for a total of 20 minutes), and I went to the gym on Friday morning for about 45 minutes, and actually got a pretty workout.  I feel good about that amount of activity for the week!  However, I didn't do so well with the whole eating part.  I sort of let myself eat whatever I wanted over the 4th of July holiday and the weekend while my sister was here.  Tiffany and her roommate Andrea came to visit this weekend.  We had so much fun!  We ate too much and had a lot of fun just doing nothing.  It was a really chill weekend and a great way to end my little stay-cation before going back to work tomorrow.  I had a disaster of a dream about work last night, I guess I'm not really excited about going back.:)  Oh well, such is life.  Go to work, go to work, go to work.  You'd think I'd be used to it by now, huh?  Hopefully one day I can say I actually WANT to do what I do, instead of just HAVING to do what I do.  Although I have been much happier doing what I have to do as of late, so that's nice.  I enjoy working with the people I work with and that's a big deal, so that makes it easier.  Also, I think my second job is helping a lot, it creates a better balance in my life.  For those who don't know, I'm working part time as a tour guide at Wheeler Farm!  I LOVE it.  It is just a relaxing, laid back job doing something that is actually fun and I really enjoy it.  It doesn't even really feel like work most of the time.  It has been a great blessing for me.  Anyway, here's to another week of trying hard to eat better, exercise, and take care of myself!

Week 1 Report

 Well, I think this week was a success!  According to this picture above, I have lost 2 lbs in a week.  I'm going to just say that it was one, because it has been fluctuating between this number and about 200.4.  So hopefully next week it will be steady at this number or lower!  I didn't work out for 3 days at 20 min each, but I did work out 2 days this past week for a little over 30 min each, both good hard workouts, so I figure that counts.  I have stayed between 1500 and 1700 calories every day (except for yesterday, Saturday) and I even made these and gave most of them away!  Stars and stripes sugar cookies made from scratch. :)

I am geared for another week and so excited for a little vacation.  I get to have 5 whole days off of both jobs for the 4th of July and I am so glad!  My sister is coming for a visit and we're going to have a blast.  I think my next goal will be to start planning meals/snacks ahead of time so I always know what I am eating and have something planned instead of trying to scrounge and end up eating something unhealthy.  Sound ok?  Thanks for listening! See ya next week.

Here we go!

Lungs burning, legs aching, feet about to fall off, head pounding.  Running!  I went running on Thursday evening, and it hurt!  I haven't really been exercising a whole lot lately.  I have been very inconsistent since last August.  I was doing so well for most of the summer, and then I just fell off the boat somehow and just never really made the effort to climb back on.  But on Thursday I decided that ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!  I stepped on the scale and saw this:  

I never thought I would hit the 200 mark, and I flipped. NO WAY. I want to climb back onto the boat and take control!  I'm steering it now.  It's time.  So, I have made some goals and I HAVE to stick to them.  I've said this before and of course I've failed.  But I'm sick of failing.  I'm sick of the up and down.  And I'm sick of hiding, being embarrassed about my body.  I want to be healthy, strong, and a good weight. I couldn't care less if I'm super skinny, I just want to feel and look the best that I can.  And the only person that is going to help me do that is me...AND all of you!  That's why I'm posting this on here.  I've never really talked much about these kinds of things before because I've been so self conscious.  But I'm done with that.  I need to put this out there so that I can have some accountability and motivation to keep going and become the person that I want to be!  I have set some goals and I'm going to try my best to post once a week about how I'm doing.  Comments, advice, and encouragement are welcome!  Please help me on my journey. My first goal is to start slow.  I'm going to exercise at least 3 times a week for a minimum of 20 minutes.  I'll increase this as I go, but this is how I need to start, otherwise I overwhelm myself and just quit altogether.  This past week I ran on Thursday and Friday for 20 minutes each, and then on Saturday I spend about 5 hours walking/running all over Wheeler Farm giving tours! :-)  My second goal is to count my calories each day and record them in a journal so that I can keep tabs on what I'm eating and start paying attention more so that I can keep it under control!  I haven't been doing too terrible at that, but I know there are some days that I could do MUCH better.  I'm so excited to start making changes.  Wish me luck!  I'm DETERMINED and happy.