step it up for Xmas?

I always think that I need to step it up at Xmas time instead of be laxer. Even if I'm not totally successful it keeps me from going berserk with all the cookies and junk around me. I've heard that sucking on candy canes can help because they take a while to consume and are pretty low in calories (40 for plain kinds). I had a few bad days this week but before that did well even at Thanksgiving at my parents where I usually gain a couple pounds.

Oh and I told Chris I was thinking of making my limit for the last3 weeks before xmas 1200 insted of 1300. His response was that he thought 1300 cal was already very low and that instead I should try to run longer and faster to burn more calories. What do you think? I was thinking of trying both! :)

And I was originally going to try to aim for the 130 lbs mark. But I'm looking at my post-3-babies-belly and wondering if that is low enough. I've always thought I could never get down to 120 or 125 but I was thinking I would try. I'm losing weight everywhere else- butt, hips, back, legs (and unfortunately boobs). My stomach is smaller but I seem to hold the extra weight there. I do crunches but nothing real serious. What do you think Josh? Will more stomach exercises help or am I just shaped that way?
11/25-1357
11/26- 1407
11/27- splurge Tgiving day
11/28- around 1300
11/29- around 1300
11/30- 1400ish- traveling in the car always makes me snacky
12/1- 1305
12/2- 1327
12/3- 1300
12/4- missing, I'm pretty sure I went over this day probably by 200 cals
12/5- splurge day (which I shouldn't have done based ont he day before)
12/6- 1522 sigh- I dont' know what got into me; I blame my period :(
12/7- I thought I was right at 1200 but I forgot to write down dinner stuff

Sothe 1200 thing didn't go that well for teh first few days. But yesterday i was on track and I'm trying again today. The problem witht he more running thing is that I think Chris underestimates how difficult it is to find more time to run!

I am down 11 lbs since mid Oct.! If it weren't for my eating this weekend I think I'd be down 12 lbs already!

more calories

11/19- 1277
11/20- 1405
11/21- 1260 (weighed in at 10 lbs below starting weight!)
11/22- ?? turkey dinner at church (splurge day)
11/23- 1445- i made a mudslide and miscalculated the icecream that i added;I thought I was going to end up with 1270 being my total and the next morning I realized I had made the error; bartender's remorse! (up 2 pounds after splurge)
11/24- 1285 (down a pound)
I guess this week Thanksgiving will be my splurge instead of having it on the weekend. Well, we'll see. If I can hold out and eat reasonably I may still do the weekend.

oh yeah

... and I've been getting a little lax with my 1300 cal limit. I'm sort of saying in my mind that in the 1300s is ok. Actually I catch myself thinking that as long as I'm 1360 or less that it still counts. :) I'd like to improve that because it may make a difference in how much I'm losing at a time.

plateau?

11/14- 1328
11/15- didn't do total count- splurge
11/16-1385 (went back up a pound somewhere around here)
11/17- 1220?
11/18- 1220- thought I maybe down 9 total pounds after I ran but when I woke up the next day it looked more like 8 lbs

It seems like my body loses then levels out and determines to slow metabolism more to counter the lack of food; then after a few days or a week when it realizes I'm not going to give it more food it starts using up some fat reserves. Does this make sense Josh? You said that most people you talk to lose in spurts and it seems like I do too.

diet update

11/6- 1267
11/7- 1725 splurge
11/8- 1357
11/9-1280 (up a pound)
11/10- 1220 (i feel like it must have been more; my period may be explaining the pound)
11/11- 1292
11/12- 1357 (back down the pound plus one more- for total loss of 8 lbs)
11/13- 1361

I feel like I had another day over 1400 in the last week, so either I'm a pessimist or I forgot to write some things. (I just looked at the last post and realized I was thinking about 11/5.) But overall Im doing well. I didn't lose any last week, but then did some hormonal wavering and then I did go down this week.

Progress is so slow, but I have to remember that it is progress. No, I will not drop the next 10 lbs next week. But if I hang in there I will drop those 10 lbs sometime after Christmas and in the mean time will be looking pretty good this Christmas compared to last!!

podcasting baby!

Our church is now podcasting! I'm really excited about this. We've already had 28 downloads in the last 2 days! Check it out at podpoint.net and go to recent podcasts or look us up in the directory. You can go right to our page by going to www.podpoint.net/Trading_Post_317. (Ok, this website is formatting over top my typing so you can't see that there should be underline marks as follows: Trading_Post_317.) Hope other people are blessed by this and can stay connected with our church when they can't be there, etc.

dropped again I think!

I think I'm down anther pound this week for a total loss in the past five weeks of 7 lbs.

11/3- 1155
11/4- 1306
11/5- 1448-oops, Pizza Hut got to me :(

but overall I'm doing well. I got out some old jeans I haven't worn in a while and that always feels good

Myers Briggs Bible study

I just had a great time last night. I taught about Myers Briggs at a women's Bible study. The women took the assessment (I should explain that they did not take the actual MB indicator which I would not have been allowed to score) a few weeks ago and then I scored it and planned a presentation. It was so much fun. I just love talking about MB and Ilike the idea of encouraging people about what they are good at and helping people see when others are different why they may have difficulties with it. The women seemed to really enjoy it. The group was very small and so it was difficult to do one of the activities, so it would be cool to do it with a larger sampling. But the smallness of the group also lent itself to a good discussion.

My jeans are looser!

Ahhh... a smidgen of success at last. I started realizing that I was losing weight on the scale but then I started feeling it: when i sit in the car I'm not as squished. :) Usually I pu the jeans on and they feel good until I have to lean over and scrunch up. And usually by the end of the day with natural bloating and eating they're tighter and they're not feeling this way the last few days.

calorie update:
10/29-1332
10/30- 1321 almost seem to be down a second pound for the week
10/31- anywhere from 1800 to 2000 for halloween :( but I counted it for my "splurge"
11/1- 1335
11/2- 1292
11/3- this morning down another pound- that makes a total of 4 lbs lower than my "hang out" weight (I think that when I started sticking to the 1300 pounds about 4 weeks ago I may have been at least two pounds higher than the hang out weight- so that's acutally a total of 6 lbs dropped; this may be why I didnt think it was working at first; i was determined not to let myself think i had lost weight until i got past the hang out range and seem to have accordingly brain-washed myself; still I swear that I'm losing the weight faster now than two weeks ago and I think most extraneous factors are the same- any thoughts Josh? does my body hold out on me at first; or is it slowing down on purpose at first to counter balance the sudden lack of food and then finally has to give in because i've persisted in limiting it?

Anyway, I can't tell you how good it feels to have some success and to have the knowledge that the sacrifices I'm making count for somehting. It makes me all the more motivated to stick to theplan. Now let's see if I can make it through the holiday season! :)

Other observation: I experienced this last time I was successful at dieting. Once I'm in the swing of self-denial, I'm not as hungry all the time. My body seems to be reprogrammed to not look for food all day long. But there are still some days when I am ravenous.

Some progress

10/24- 1740
10/25- didn't count it but at least 1700; I went to a kid's ;party and went out for dinner; so one splurge day turned into two
10/26- went up a few pounds 1405
10/27- 1300
10/28- back down to new weight 1361
10/29- down a new pound!; still counting for today

more boring (but good!) diet updates

10/18- 1295
10/19- 1300?
10/20- 1266
10/21- 1280
10/22- 1323
10/23- I thought it was 1167, but then I forgot about some things, plus I ate a few candies hmmmm.... maybe more like1407?

I seem to have finally swung below my hang out weight by one pound. :) Boy that took a lot of time.

confession

oct 15- 1207- believe it!
oct 16- 1350- not too bad
oct 17- 1776- :( I was planning on having a splurge day this weekend, but I was going to wait til Sat or Sun and I was only going to give myself 200 cal, not 400. well, we'll try to do better today

doing well

Oct 13-1289
Oct 14- 1301? it was very close to that

Dieting success vs. Dieting unsuccess

I'm going to start today( or right now) vs. I'm going to start tomorrow
What can I do without? vs. What can I get away with?

But how do you switch from the second to teh first mentatlity?

Diet update

Thanks for all who have called blogged or otherwise to keep me on track. Ithink that it helps.
Sept 30- 1505
Oct 1- 1480
Oct 2-1545
Oct 3- 1207?? (I doubt it)
Oct 4- 1500
Oct 5- 1585 just a guess
Oct 6, 7,8,9-I didnt' finish writing down; got off track and discouraged and hadnt' blogged in for accountability
Then I talked to Josh and decided I needed to be more accurate of all the little calories that I was leaving out. got a little more motivated and feel like if I'm really only eating 1300 calories and exercising I MUST start losing some weight. But I won't know until i do it!!!!
Oct 10- 1295
Oct 11-1247
oct 12- 1280
(only bad thing is I only ran once instead of three times)
yeah, doing better!
Thanks for all the encouragement and prayers

Diet

Sept 25- 1375
Sept 26- 1380
Sept. 27- 1166 (!) I wasn't feeling well
Sept. 28- splurge day; didnt' really count
Sept. 29- 1367
Was doing well and losing weight but the splurge day seems to have cancelled that out. Not sure a splurge day is worth it for teh set back with weight. What do you think Josh? Should I shoot for lower daily calorie intake?

Piratey Steven

Well, I said some cool things about John on his birthday and I've been kind of behind but wanted to dedicate a post to Steven. He's so piratey.

Whimsical, unpredictable, cuddly one minute and prickly the next.

Surprising. He'll blow you away occasionally by some small detail that he remembers or his large dinosaur vocabulary (he knows about the Jurassic, Betaceous and Triassic periods; and don't get him started on nano Tyrannus'). I'll be sitting with John who is struggling to read a word on a page and Steven on the other side of me will spit out the missing word or phrase (he's not even looking at the page- he simply has it memorized).

Bendy! That kid can flip like an Olympic gymnast. And watching him you'd think he's spent years perfecting his form.

Dramatic. When he pretends to be a raptor, he looks convincingly like a raptor.

Complimentary. Lately I've been told that many people are getting compliments on their shirts, pants and belts. Does he just like all belts or is he trying to impress people or does he like the response he gets when people are pleasantly surprised by this? Does he just like making people feel good? I have no idea. Enigmatic.

Adores his brother. His brother gave him a ride on his four-wheeler (yeah, you read that right) and he was thrilled to death and rejected a similar offer from Dad. When John told him today that the square he had carefully drawn looked like a square that a first-grader could draw he beamed.

Affectionate. Lots of kisses for Lizzie and he insists on giving me a full hug before bed. You'll only get some if you're on his good side, though.

Bookworm. Loves books especially if they relate to reptiles or pirates or sea creatures. He's also wiggly like a worm. Mr. Server tells me that he is "inattentive." (Whose idea was it to put 5 year old boys in school all day?)

Tough as nails. The hardness of his head is legendary in our family, circle of friends and our church where people have witnessed him smashing heads with someone and walking away like nothing happened while the other kids cries.

Boy, I love that kid!

My new diet

Counting calories... I was so hoping to avoid this. But here I am. Sometimes I just dont' feel like at the end of the day I know if I did well or not. I'll know I resisted those three snacks, but thatdoesn't necessarily outweigh all the crap I did eat. I've been hanging out at the same three pounds since about April and actually have crept up a few even.

So, one of the things that I need is accountability. I thought of posting how I'm doing on this blog. Of course this does require some consistency on my part in posting and to some extent it requires that people consistently read it. But I'm going to give it a try.

The diet: less than 1400 calories a day*. with one splurge day on the weekend

That's not a staggeringly low number. Which makes it doable for me. Maybe the results will also be slow. We'll see. here's how I did this week:
Wed. 9/17- 1495- didn't count up my dinner before eating it
thurs 9/18- 1275?!- I may have forgotten somethign?
fri 9/19- ok, this is embarassing but it's th splurge day I guess- 2425- yeah and that's just a guess
Sat 9/20- 1400 right about
sun. 9/21-1300?
Mon. 9/22- 1520- darn it; i definitely did a late night snack that ruined my day
Tues. 9/23- 1350- resisted that late night snack!
Wed. 9/24- 1375- I can't find anything to eat for 25 calories tonight :)

I welcome your comments as it will make the accountability part feel more real.

*I'm learning what the caloric content of things is. My numbers will not be entirely accurate. I both over and under estimate so far. I also don't always count fruit and veggie snacking or one calorie drink in a day.

The summer is gone...

Well, in one week I will be back down to one child. It's kinda weird but I'm looking forward to it. Last year I cried when John got on the bus. We'll see if my less hormone-ridden body grieves the loss of Steven during the day. Lately they have been driving me crazy with their bickering (John pushing buttons, Steven whining or crying in response with an occasional role reversal), but chances are the house will feel very empty that first day. I may try to use the time to work a few more hours this fall. We'll see how that works out. Oh, my cute little pirates. Steven had an extra assessment this summer and the woman was extremely positive about Steven's readiness for Kindergarten. This made me feel good about sending him which was a little harder of a decision than for John. He'll have the same teacher as John who is a fellow dinosaur lover and this helps alot!

Dieting has not been going well. I'll have a couple good weeks and then some bad weeks. I've been floating aroudn teh same weight for probably 4 months now. I guess that's better than an overall gain! I'm trying to eat more calories at the beginning of the day and less at the end. This makes it much easier not to snack during the day, but it is still hard at night not to snack after dinner. I was hoping to be down to a new low for the trip to Fla but I dont' think that will happen now. I continue to run so my legs look really good! :) But the gut, not so much...

Elizabeth is tiny as ever. She still grows and the doctor doesn't seem to be worried. Wow, I just realized that she's 10 months today! In all other matters she excells. She's crawling and standing a little. She has started talking! She says Dah dee to chris and Ma ma to me and even says "ki tee" sometimes to the cat. Sometimes if prompted she'll wave and say "hi ee." This all brings a smile to chris' face and she can get a little Daddy time with this cuteness until she spits up on his phone. Could Pavlov teach Lizzie to stop spitting up on his phone? Probably, but the spitting up should be done soon when we finish with bottles anyway.

I'll try to update this a little more in the fall. I have so much to say after our trip to Colorado which was such a blast

May is Gone!!

Well, my keeping up with the blog definitely had its test in may an dfailed! In May I celebrated 5 birthdays, did Mother's day, put together the summer program for the sunday school, hosted a Transformer party, tried to start pumping milk to get my supply up and be giving Lizzy enough nutrition, prepare John for his end of the year Dinosaur play, visited my friend's new baby, went over night to a Women's retreat, dealt with a couple of stressful mom-of-John's-friends relationships, cleaned my bedroom (you have no idea what a task that was!), went to Tball practices, had surgery to remove a cyst near my eye, closed our loan for building our next house, planned games for a baby shower and if you count the first two days of June took Steven to Kindergarten orientation and went on a trip to Marineland with Elly and Laura and the kids while Elly was visiting. Oh, and Chris broke his arm which meant I was opening extra Snapple bottles and tying big boy boots in the morning. Whew!

maybe i'll get back into the swing of things in June!

Sir John, the awesome

Today is John's birthday. He's six. Chris and I can't believe it. But we should believe it because John does some pretty amazing things for someone who's only been around six years. Such as...

... all green light days, ALL YEAR (translation for those of you unfamiliar with the stop light system- he's very well behaved in school)

... the other day without me asking and without having ever done it, he got off the bus and noticed I hadn't brought the trashcans back down our 150 ft driveway; I looked out to see that he had stuck teh recycling bin in one of the cans and was dragging all three items back to the house

... he greeted a new kid to his Sunday School class and I was told later that it really made this boy feel welcomed and comfortable

... he wants to do everything himself- and manages to do most of these things successfully

... he's going hunting with Papa for wild turkey tomorrow morning

... he sets his alarm and wakes Chris and I up in the morning for school

... he knows how to make Elizabeth laugh (even I have the hardest time)

... he's tried soccer, bowling, football and t-ball and does pretty well at all of them

Well, I could go on. But we're very proud of our biggest brother!

To: Elly

Dear Elly,

Thanks so much for letting me sleep in your extra room, lugging me down the beach stairs and holding me so I wouldn't cry so much.

I had such a great time meeting your friends Lynsey, Jon (wow, he's really good at guitar), Ben and Stacy and listening to you and Mom play piano and guitar and feeling the ocean breeze while I napped and buying new outfits at Target and saving Toby from constipation and starvation and seeing the lizards and seeing your D**** dress and watching a rumble at Maggiano's and checking out the over-zealous life guards and having no boys in my face for 5 whole days(!) and trying to be Episcopal for a day and racing to the airport in record time at 5AM and feeling the squishy sand and the cold waves and watching you and Mom run (Mom says mirrors are super motivating) and learning the expression "strong work" and hearing conversations about homosexuals and global warming and Red Lobster and driving in circles around parking lots. And Mom says she hasn't read a whole book in one weekend in a REALLY long time!

I had such a great time!

With much love,
"Bitty"

P.S. Apparently my Mom thinks she is all savvy that she can insert photos into the blogs, but she doesn't seem to know how to rotate them first. "Strong work," Mom.

Coffee freak out?

I had a mini-meltdown tonight. I have been a yucky person today- irritable, impatient, yelling even at my 6 month old for the crying which is not her fault. I have been stressed, anxious. I started to wonder today if these ups and downs are caused by my new irregular coffee habit.

The Diet Pendulum

Hmmm... well, this is what I've been learning about dieting (at least for me). Being "hard core" doesn't work for longer than a week. I"m just not motivated enough to give up food at a high level for long periods. I seem to be able to sustain smaller more gradual weight loss better. I get this idea that I've done so well that I should reward myself and then gain back all the weight I just lost. I think the more specific accountability of the 30 and the shorter-ness of it made it more successful. And maybe the new-ness of it too?

Well as of two days ago I was at my lowest: 17 lbs below my New Year's weight. I'm up a little which may have something to do with the cookie making for John's birthday Kindergarten snack.

And so the pendulum swings, but I'm lower than 3 months ago!

sigh

I haven't been doing as well lately. I was all gung ho to lose weight for my trip, which lost me 3 lbs. But I've been wafflingback above that and not eating well. I'm falling prey to my favorite temptations- chocolate, potato chips,... and chocolate... oh and just more food than I need general. I'm discouraged, and a little bitchy. I have two good days and hang in there and then two bad days. Over teh weekend I had two really bad days.

So, in fairness, I really need to start my 60 days over again!

New Challenge- Day 14

I am on a mission! I've lost 3 lbs. What helps me: protein snack, diet Pepsi, coffee, apples and carrots, keeping busy and probably breastfeeding. :)

Fire bad

Sometimes a nice hot fire is great. Toast some marshmallows and the like.

Last week fire was bad. My sister's apartment went up in flames. Luckily, it was during the day and no one was hurt. Some of the building was completely gone. Her apartment had some burning and lots of water damage. If I can get the picture of her apartment to post on the blog below I will.

Anyway, I was so impressed by the local reaction which was that people kept coming by her lease office to drop off donations. Clothes, toys, and even a boom box. I'm also impressed by my sister's attitude which was to say that all the stuff was God's anway (and that was before she knew if any of it could be salvaged). She ended up being able to get a whole bunch of meaningful things like computer hard drive, files of her architect portfolio and even a slightly moist guitar. Her roommate did not quite fair so well and wasn't even allowed to get stuff from her room because it was too dangerous. But when offered a gift card from teh Red Cross for clothes, she gave it to the family from upstairs. Wow. I wish I could say I had such little attachment to my things, but I don't know. I like my things pretty well.

Love ya Bec!

Gators, here we come!

Lizzie and I will be visiting Elly at the end of April. It will be hard not to think about the boys, especially Steven, who are obsessed with reptiles and crocodiles while we're there. I already know what jacksonville t-shirt I have to buy!

Check out Elizabeth in shades below. maybe in this picture she's Betsy.

A New Challenge

Well, I completed the 30 day challenge and I am very pleased with the weight I lost. But it made me realize how much more there is to go.

So I'm doing a 60 day challenge. It will be similar to the first (only longer, of course). I'm going to allow a protein snack as per Josh's advice. And no dessert til after my FL trip. I'm really trying to be hard core right now because we're preparing to visit Elly in FL and I will have to put on a bathing suit in public. Arghhhh!

I'm not going to seek out specific accountability prayer partners as I did last time. Instead I will tell all my friends about the blog. I appreciate your prayers of course. I know they help!

I already had to start over again which will put me finishing the first week of June. My goal is 15 lbs.

Thanks for all the support, everyone and all the dieting tips, Josh.

Before and After the Diet

Here are some pics that I will briefly post of before and after the 30 days. The difference is very subtle. But i can see it, and the clothes fit different. Hooray!

New photo

I changed my "author of the blog" photo (which also apparently appears next to my blogs). I made myself put the original one because it most accurately represented how I looked at the time. But I've lost 11 lbs since that picture darn it! so I changed my photo. :)

Diet- Day 26

So I'm at a 6 lb loss and maybe on the verge of an 7lb loss. I thought I'd have made more progress in the last 6 days. But, I definitely feel smaller and fit into things better. I really have a total loss of 11 lbs since Christmas, so I try to keep reminding myself to count this progress as well.

I can tell that the diet is winding down because I've gotten a little lax with a chip here or bite of the kids' food there, etc. But I'll hunker down and finish out the 30 days and not start over. Overall I've shown a great deal of restraint.

I still can't believe how hard it is to resist a cookie sometimes. I tell myself, "I don't do that any more." Other times I'm used to the sacrifice. I think the hardest times are while I'm cooking dinner and before bedtime. I can resist food in the morning and if I'm busy or not in the kitchen keep it up in the afternoon. Then when dinner time hits I'm starving!

Diet- Day 20

Oh ye of little faith... (I mean me!)

I'm down 6 lbs total. :) Weighing in every day has its drawbacks. And I ran 2 miles today!

Diet- Day Eighteen

Last night I felt like giving up on the diet. I went down a pound... after going up 2 over the weekend. I know the healthy way to lose weight is to take it slow and make lifestyle changes, but it's also more discouraging. In my past experience the scale has gone up and down as I lost the weight, but I was still bummed. Hmmmm.

But today I think that I can't go back. I must hang in there because my body can't slump back to where it was 2 1/2 months ago ever again. Ever. I must never weigh as much as my husband again. :) And if I hang in there I will be able to buy those new jeans I need so badly. Here's to self-denial, feeling better and healthier and new GAP jeans!

It Snowed In Buffalo Too!

So Ohio got the big press for 20 inches of snow. But the Buffalo airport got 20 inches and we think we got 2 feet at our house! Below are a couple of pics before we got the final foot of snow on Saturday night.

Diet- Day Fifteen

I have a net loss of 5 lbs! I've been staying away from the kids' scraps. Resisting the snacks and late night snacks (those damn pizza commercials at 8PM!) is easier overall but still really hard at times. It is a good feeling when I eat a normal serving at dinner and then don't go back and instead of feeling stuffed, I know i've eaten just enough. In normal Lauren mode I feel like I don't know when I'm full or don't "need" food because I'm hungry all the time (which i'm assuming is because I am eating all of the time). It's actually a good feeling to know you've had enough.

Diet- Day Thirteen

Well, it's been a little while since I logged in on this. So by day 3 I had lost 2 pounds. By day 6 I had lost 3 almost 4 pounds. Then I leveled out for two days and then gained back a pound (meaning a net loss of 2). I was a little discouraged after such a rocking start. I knew I was sticking to the plan and was getting exercise too. I think the one thing I need to watch is eating the scraps of leftover food off my kids plates whcih somehow in my mind didn't count as a snack or eating a second serving. Oops, I'll work on that. I had a few other times when I simply forgot to not eat the sample at the grocery store. But mostly I had been on track.

Then on day 11 I got my period (sorry for too much info, Josh). Ohhhhh. My cycle is still weird with the breastfeeding- two periods in Jan but none in Feb- so I clean forgot about this possible reason for weight gain.

Back on the scale day 13 and now I have a net loss of 4, almost 5 pounds. We'll see if that trend continues. I"m trying not to go hog wild on my "loop holes." I can only have one serving of food at a meal, but have no regulated size for this serving. So pray forme to have control in this area. This had been going well until the set back and the hormones this weekend. I want to get the most out of this 30 days.

So it looks like a weight loss of 5-10 pounds is still within reach at this pace.

Pre-School at home

So, Steven has always been more of a reluctant learner. Of course it is completely unfair that the only kid i have to compare him to is John. John soaked in learning, especially the rote stuff. He begged for more. Maybe Steven is more your typical kid who really wantsto play and have fun. It was easy to get John to practice writing his name. I have a difficult time coaxing Steven to try this even though I know he is learning stuff and is pretty smart.

Then inspiration struck this week. I thought he would have more fun writing letters in a non-traditional way. So we wrote in flour. I actually got him to draw an S, V, T and E before it completely devolved into pirates and sea creatures. S is a snake, upside down V is the spikes on the back of a croc, T is the mast on a pirate ship, etc. (see pic below)

Well, it's a start. I have 6 more months to get him to write his whole name on paper with a crayon. :)

To grandmas and aunts who care about these things

Lizzie had her first food today. See pics below.

Diet- Day One

Well, I'm actually writing this on day three, but it's about day one.

So I was dreading the first day. The first day is like when food parades around you practically jumping off the counters and shelves. It's calling me... But the first day wasn't as bad as I thought.

I tried something I remember my mom mentioning once. I expected this idea to be helpful, but was surprised how much I learned from doing it. I'll call it the Brown Bag Technique.

In the Brown Bag Technique you go throughout your day and every time you go for that snack you want to eat (in this case, I did everything that would have broken my new "diet") you place it in the bag instead of your mouth. Then you assess at the end of the day, count the calories or whatever.

I knew I was eating too much before the diet. As I filled my bag I knew the things were piling up, but I still thought it was a fairly insignificant amount of food. Then I counted the calories. 955 calories!! Oh my word! I'm not sure if this counted the second serving I would often have had at dinner time. That's a little embarrassing to put on this blog for everyone to read. But no wonder I wasn't losing weight! I thought that breastfeeding just didn't work for me to lose the pregnany weight, but I think I just haven't been giving my body a chance to tap into the reserves.

Wow, this really motivated me that I can still eat the foods I like, but in moderation and I can lose weight.

Thanks to all who are praying for me!

Eyeballs

Ok, this is weird but lately I'm amazed by eyeballs. I look at my daughters up close a lot because I nurse her 7 times a day. Here she is this tiny little being who can't do anything for herself but she has this incredibly sophisticated instrument attached to her. We have these high tech video cameras, but the human eye has all that and more- the ability to focus close and far, it sees things that it's not looking at peripherally, can look in multiple directions in fractions of seconds, has mechanisms to protect itself and lubricate itself to keep optimal working conditions... I don't know I just find this amazing. And this is only one of teh instruements on our body that carries out very specific functions for us each day-- no every minute of the day!! And eyes can say things with a slight movement of muscle through their expression that don't even need to be put into words. exasperation, love, sadness, worry, come here, DON'T DO THAT. They are not only an input interface, but they also communicate. How cool!

Ahhhh

I just "Clean Sweeped" (from HGTV) our bedroom today. I actually took out everything but the heavy furniture which I rearranged. Then I sorted teh crap and put back in the things I really need (and foudn a bunch of bills that need paying). I feel like I'm in a hotel room. Ahhh...

On a more sour note: two of our family members have a fever right now, three have yucky coughs at night and two have bloody noses from the dry air. I like Buffalo all year with the exception of February.

I'm going to give this a try

Well, my friend Emily reminded my about blogspot. Our church has one too. So i'm going to try to keep this updated with some comments and pictures so people can see how the Kausners are doing. Not sure if I'll keep up with it. We'll see.