weighing in

so I am down a little this week to 276.2.  that is 1.4 down from last week YAY!  but I will say that I had a wierd stomach bug last week which, well, may have helped.  I ate fine, felt fine the first half of the week but had to use the bathroom lots!  all week! so by the end of the week I was pretty drained...litterally! LOL (I know, tmi)

anyway, I felt better over the weekend only to wake up monday morning about 3 with a croupy little girl!  will it ever end?  I feel like it may not.  It has been a rough couple of nights (and days aren't that easy either) of sitting in a steamy shower with a fevery, croupy girl who really, couldn't breath well, and maybe we really should have taken her to the ER.  We almost did.  But each time we sat in the shower she was better so I held onto that. Oh and did I mention it's 70 degrees?  boy am I hot and sweaty and in need of an actual shower!

Today she seems a bit better, lower fever and coughing more up and breathing easier for sure!  I hope the worst is behind us and I really hope no one else gets it!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have managed to get some laundry done and cleaned up the kitchen a bit and made some bread even!  I am making this for dinner and serving over soaked rice with a salad.  And if you want to see how anyone elses weight loss is going check here.

Preach it!

All I have to say is amen sister!

weigh in: the one where everything stays the same...again

Does anyone even check on me anymore?   I have been pretty boring.  Sorry. Not losing (but thankfully not gaining).  Yup. 277.6 lbs still.  Don't get me wrong, I didn't gain anything and that is nothing to sneeze at considering I am not actively exercising or really doing anything different in my diet except eating better fats (butter and coconut oil) and homemade food (a lot of it prepared in a traditional method according to this book).  And I am doing this awesome ecourse!!

I have made some very yummy things in the last couple of weeks.  It is so easy though it does take some forethought.  No throwing something together at the last minute.  But I am enjoying learning the new methods and incorporating them into my normal routines.  It's fun and I love that I am making the foods more nutritious for my family.

There is a soaked muffin recipe that I keep trying with different add ins.  I am going to soak some flour and oats tonight to make the muffins tomorrow morning for breakfast, nothing like fresh hot muffins in the morning.  I think tomorrow's will have some chopped up chocolate chips and some shredded coconut.

My family also really enjoyed the soaked pancakes and the homemade soaked pasta.  I haven't made the soaked biscuits yet.  Oh and let me tell you, I have been trying to make my family eat brown rice for years, no one likes it, we gag it down with some chicken and veggies once in a while, but it is a cheap bulk item I really would love us to eat more of. I have never been able to get it to taste good.  It ends up still hard on the inside (or I burn it up with not enough water) or it has no flavor.  Well, I made the soaked rice and it was SO good!!  And my husband liked it too!  and he always gags an obligatory bite down and wonders why we can't eat white rice.  YAY for soaking and traditional foods!

Maybe I will get some motivation this week to exercise.  I say that each week hoping it will be true... if yu want to see how others did this week check out Eclipsed.

GREEN

I have not been too personally involved in our garden in years past.  I am kind of a sedentary person and am a bit girly in the fact that I don't like dirt under my nails.  But this year, in an effort to grow more of our food (which has been a goal of mine for a while) I am getting involved.  I also hope that the added activity in my days will help with my weightloss lifestyle change.

So I will be out pulling weeds and watering, planting, raking and composting.  I will have the kids help and we will do a gardening unit study along with it.  I hope to post some pictures through out the process as well. 

To start I will show you our plants we started inside so far...

It's  mostly bell peppers at this point.  We did start a few other seeds just for fun though none of them need to be started yet.  I haven't gotten my tomatoes yet or they would be there as well.  I hope they come soon because they should be started soon.

Here is our garden area (newly hoed though we will rototill before actually planting)

And here is the new compost area my husband built this weekend.

We have had bad luck in the past, maybe because we just weren't adding enough "brown" to our green. I am having a homeschool chuck-wagon dinner next week and will have some bales of hay to put out here in the compost after that. I also will send the kids out to turn it each day as well. They love playing with rotting food and worms :) We will also use the hay to mulch in between plants to keep moisture in and weeds down.

So that is how we are coming so far...to see how others are going green.

weigh in

so, I didn't get around to posting yesterday.  We have been busy with getting over sickness, and had a field trip on Monday to the railroad museum and then my oldest ended up sick yesterday.  It has been a roller coaster these last few weeks.

I am down .4 lbs from last week.  Not terribly exciting, but I am thankful it isn't a gain.  Exercising is still slow in coming but the good thing is that I am definately working more movement into my everyday tasks.  I guess over the long haul that is the best thing to sustain a life change and not just a "diet".  So while I''d love to be 25 lbs down now, I think the things I am doing are definately changing my lifestyle.

I am loving the ecourse I am taking and will hopefully have some time to post about it soon.

weigh in and life

Well, no loss or gain this week.  I am not surprised, but a bit sad because I keep thinking I could be 20 lbs down by now if I would keep exercising.  I am lazy. 

so I am going to work on working out this week, AGAIN. I was unpacking a box in the storage room this week and found 2 workout videos that are old, but could serve to mix me up a bit from just riding my stationary bike (infrequently as it is). So we will see.



Good news is that my daughter Megan is doing much better and seems to be recovering from her food poisoning.  I am so glad.  I felt so bad!

And my 5 year old son Gabe had his speech evaluation today and I am a bit disappointed in the evaluation itself and am glad to hear she doesn't think he has a hearing problem (though she never acctually did a hearing test), but I am not sure she can do any more then I am doing myself at this point.  SO, I am not sure what to do next...

bad mom

So my 10 year old has food poisoning.  A couple of weeks ago I made homemade mayo.  That of course means raw eggs.  I was fine because I used eggs that I believe are from better sources then most factory farmed eggs, so they would be safer and less likely contaminated.  We ate the mayo, all of us in several dishes over several days and were fine.  Well, almost 2 weeks later I went to use it and saw big red spots on it so I threw it out.  Coincidentally, that same day Megan says she isn't feeling well, and starts throwing up and having diarrhea.  I wondered ho we got the stomach flu when we hadn't been out to the store or park or museum or anything (usually you can tell where you where in the last few days that you might have caught a bug).  We had been home all week!

I started to worry about everyone else getting sick, but had this nagging feeling about the mayo.  So I asked if she had used it at all lately.  She said yes in fact she had made herself a deviled egg two days before!  I asked if it looked or smelled funny.  She said there were some brown dots but she scooped around them!!!

Oh no!  So I am confident that she has salmonella poisoning.  I have done lots of research and it seems likely.  She has been feeling bad for 4 days (though today she seems better) and no one else has gotten sick.  I have been making her drink lots of fluids and I wish I had some homemade broth to give her.  But I tried getting her to eat some yogurt, but she really doesn't want to eat much, most things make her nauseous and gag.  But I got some probiotic pills and she seems to be able to take them fine.

I am thankful she seems to be getting better.  I have never had food poisoning and no one else in the family has either.  I have been a bit freaked out and I feel so bad.  I should have paid attention and thrown it out after the recommended 3 days.  I feel horrible that my baby is suffering.  I hope that the fact that she hasn't thrown up since yesterday means she is on the mend.

weigh in

This week I have done ok with food, still not regularly exercising but definately moving more in my normal routines, and I lost 1.4 lbs!  YAY!  I think I mentioned last week that I am losing with so little effort, but I am losing so little at a time...I know if I put even a little effort into exercising I would see better results.  I will work on that still, but at least the number is going in the right direction, even if I didn't lose my goal of 10 lbs this month. I need to kick it up a notch this month I think.  I will aim for 10 lbs again this month.

See how Kris did...way to go!!

weekly challenge #9

So, I am still plugging along, trying desperately to be motivated to exercise.  But I am still moving forward toward health (I am especially excited about this course) and haven't given up so woohoo!

This week Kris is challenging us to get more sleep and add a fruit or veggie at every meal.  Well, first, I have a nursing toddler and she does nurse at night.  I try not to stay up past 10pm most nights, but sometimes if hubby and I want some extra alone time we will watch a movie til late.  But, I am awake a lot during the night while I nurse.  I am a big fan of letting kids wean themselves in their own time, so I won't stop this.  I will say that it is getting better, she is sleeping longer these days (though usually still in our bed) but it does affect my sleep.  I am sure that I could feel better if I was more consistently getting full nights sleep.  But for now this will have to do.

I have been drinking green smoothies some mornings, not every morning, to get some extra veggies and fruits in my days.  They are so good and I just made this heavenly one (I used milk instead of rice milk, and honey instead of agave) this morning.... it was that kind of morning :) the kids love this one and I didn't make enough...I may need to make more later :)

I am not a huge fan of salads, though I do eat them.  I had wanted to do a salad for lunch every day when I started this but it hasn't been working.  I was too hungry too soon after.  I won't eat commercially marketed salad dressings as they are too high in artificial things I can't even pronounce.  I need to learn to make my own but the things I have tried haven't turned out so well.  So salads end up being tasteless and boring.

The kids and I do enjoy orange, yellow and red bell peppers.  I can't find them organic this time of year around here, but I do buy some non organic since it's one of the only things we buy non organic ( along with the clementines I like to snack on).  I try to have a frozen veggie my kids like at dinner every night.  I can't wait til summer and farmers markets and our garden ....  but for now we work in what we can.

Fruit is easier because it is sweet.  This time of year we eat a lot of clementines and apples.  I use a lot of frozen fruit in those smoothies I mentioned and if there is a sale on grapes like we had last week we stock up (though they were still gone in a few days) but is was a nice treat in this boring time of the food year.

So... good things happening in our food life.