Juice Fast- Day 4

I'm hungry. That is all.

Actually, not all, but it is how I feel right now. I have been feeling great until today. Today I am starving! I bought a new Breville juicer last night. I was actually at Bed Bath and Beyond for close to an hour disassembling and reassembling juicers to see which I liked the best. I got some "Can I help you with something?" throughout the process, but when I explained what I was doing they understood. Now I need to get to a produce market and load up! I have used just about everything from the basket my mom and I got this past weekend. The photo above is my new toy.

One plus about the fast? I am down 5 lbs already (read, excess water weight) and have not had to drink Miralax in almost a week. I things are changing for the better!

10 Day Juice Fast

Yup, I bit. Made the family watch Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead on Saturday and my son and I decided to do a 10 day juice fast. I like the idea of the cleansing aspect of it and not having to use supplements to keep *ahem* regular (which is 20 times worse since having surgery). I have been doing occasional juicing but will go full fledged for the 10 day fast to kick start my weight loss again and just transform how I get my nutrients. We have almost gone through all of the juice packs and our baskets from the past 2 weekends so I am going to have to go buy produce from a local market to keep my son supplied. Fortunately there is a market that sells primarily produce not too far from our house and their pricing is a little more expensive than Bountiful Baskets, but much cheaper than other grocery stores.

I have tried to get away from as much processed food as I can the past few months, but it is hard! When you get back in the habit of eating junk, it can be tough to break from it again. Fast food is going to be the toughest one to break. I have been doing really well since the beginning of the year, cooking more at home and bringing lunch from home, but we tend to want to eat out when we are together on the weekends in order to "save time" so we waste money and eat crap. I am happy to report that this weekend, with me being here 4 days, we have not eaten out aside from at the Suns game on Thursday night.

I am also going to the gym. An actual gym. First time being in a gym in, I'm not going to lie, almost a year. Since we are doing the 8k trail run as a part of the Lost Dutchman Marathon next month, I need to get running!! It is beautiful weather this weekend (after nearly freezing to death last weekend) and I am hoping that I stays nice so I can do evening runs after work. Good thing about getting off work at 4:30...there is still daylight when I get home. I hate running on the treadmill so if I am able to run around my mom's neighborhood I will do it more often.

Juicing (In the Good Way)

I'm not talking about taking steroids, but by drinking in your daily fruits & veggies. How many of you actually do it? I have wanted to try it on my own but never started until last week. I get Bountiful Baskets each week and last week they offered their juice pack for the first time, so I bought 2. It had lots of great fruits & veggies (apples, oranges, carrots, cucumber, celery, beets, ginger, lemon, lime) and we got creative. We have a juicer already that we have used a lot for grapefruits we pick off my in laws' trees, but I want to get a better one...perhaps a Breville? In the meantime to make it easier for my husband and son to make juices and smoothies for themselves in the morning, we bought a NutriBullet at Walmart last weekend. It worked great for my husband and son's breakfast, however I had a dirt smoothie. Well, at least that is what it smelled and tasted like. Why, you say? Because I added beet to mine. Made it beautiful but it tasted like my garden soil. I literally had to put a straw in and chug in order to actually finish it and not let anything go to waste. It was HORRIBLE. No matter what else I added, it tasted like dirt. Lesson learned. Follow recipes when using beets. Only good thing was that it helped to keep me regular, if you catch my drift. It is helping with the weight loss and I have dropped 5 lbs since the beginning of the year, but I need to keep up with it better.

Any favorite blends of juices you like? Please share!!

Happy New Year!! Oh Yeah, I Have A Blog.

I knew it had been a while since I visited my blog, but yikes, I didn't know it has been over 3 months! In my defense (read, excuses) I had a major laptop malfunction in Sept/Oct and just replaced it in early Dec. Aside from that, I have been working, doing the occasional party and traveling every weekend to Mesa to be with my husband and son. Yup, I am STILL doing that. I thought it would get easier with time, and some weeks it is, for the most part it sucks. But I LOVE my job here and my husband LOVES his job in Mesa. I guess we could have bigger problems, right? 

So much has happened in the past few months. We went to our first NFL game as a family for our son's birthday and that was a lot of fun. I also went to every home game that my son had with his own football team and that was always a thrill!

Eagles v. Cardinals. I was Switzerland.

Proud Football Mama!

In October I chopped off my hair....14 inches to be exact! Talk about exhilarating! You can't tell in this photo but it is a cute A-line bob. I was scared to go above shoulder length but the back was right at the top of my shoulders. It has grown about an inch since it cut it.

My SIL got married on November 9th and my hubby & I celebrated our 5th anniversary on November 10th.

Beautiful Bride and Handsome Hubby!

On our anniversary, since our photographer, Maryann, was in AZ shooting the wedding, we had family photos taken at the Scottsdale Civic Center and here are a few of my favs.

     

The weekend after our anniversary my boss took us out for our office holiday party and it was QUITE the event! The hubby and I took advantage of the occasion to actually celebrate our anniversary and stayed on the strip in order to avoid any drinking and driving. Our evening included dinner at Lakeside at the Wynn and then we saw the final performance of Garth Brooks!! It was so fun to get all dolled up and have an evening out! To say that evening was phenomenal would be an understatement! Have I ever mentioned how awesome my job is??

I have also neglected maintaining any sort of diet and the scale reflects it. Remember in September me freaking out about being 204? Well, now the holidays have come and gone and all I can say is oy vey. I weighed in last Friday at 208. Admitting that I have put on 19 lbs since Sept makes me sick to my stomach. I had a lot of fluid taken out of my band in October because of being too tight and not being able to get anything down for a day, found out that I can eat ALL SORTS of bad stuff again and went to town. I also have not worked out since the summer. Yup...over 6 months. I will do this and that every now and then, but nothing true where I can say I actually exercised. To say that I have had some self reckoning is an understatement. I realized I did really, really good when I was blogging and was "held accountable" to who knows how many people, so I am going to make my resolution to blog at least once a week.   I have connected with my old trainer and she is creating an exercise regimen for me to follow at home in my mom's home gym, I am going to start running again (well, jogging) to build back my endurance, and I am going in to see my surgeon for a fill on the 10th. This week I am signing up for a 8K trail run that will be President's Day weekend as a part of the Lost Dutchman Marathon. I did the 2 mile fun run 5 years ago and thought I was going to die. Ha!

May 27th will mark 2 years since surgery and while I realize I may not be at my goal weight of 170, I have GOT to be at 180 by then. That is a LOT of weight to drop in 5 months. I am going to keep my goal weight in mind every day and push to get there. I was so close a few months ago and reverted back to my old ways of snacking, continuing to eat even though I was full/not weighing my food (SO not good for a bandster) and just eating crap instead of what I am supposed to. I have done a lot of eating out since the move took place and need/want to get cooking again. I find that cooking, along with canning and gardening, are very therapeutic for me and help to make time go by during the week. I have also learned about making things that I would buy at the store (ie, peanut and almond butter) and know how to make it without all of the crap they put in it!

So there you have it! I'm back and laying it all out there for everyone to see again. Happy New Year!!