Still On My Weight Loss Journey

The picture of me on the left is when I was 17. This was before I got pregnant with my first child, my son. The picture of me on the right is me now... 7 years and 2 kids later. In 2005, I was 150lbs. I'm currently 212lbs. and I seem to still be gaining.

I am so angry with myself. I can not believe I let myself get to weight I am. I don't hate myself...I love myself enough to start trying to change again. I'm not sure why but it's very difficult for me. I can't just *stop* eating like an alcoholic can just *stop* drinking. I need food to live. So I'm starting to realize that it's the TYPES of food and the AMOUNT of food I need to change. This is very difficult for me because I'm such a HUGE choco-holic.

I've been failing myself. I feel like I'm failing every single day. Every night I go to bed and I tell myself "tomorrow will be different". I wake up in the morning, have a high protein low carb breakfast, but then something happens. I get this craving to eat chocolate. Maybe it's the salt in the bacon, but whatever it is, I'm determined to find a way to curb this craving. If you have any tips, they would be helpful. :)

I wanna be able to run around with my kids more. I mean, I play and run with them, but not as much as I'd like too. I can't run as fast as I used to and it really upsets me.

I wanna be sexy for my husband. Our marriage is fine but this is something I wanna do for him. We both deserve to enjoy my body. I'd love to be able to fit into a sexy piece of lingerie. I'd also like to wear dresses more often. I've really grown to love them and I'd like to look good wearing one without having to squeeze into a girdle that hurts my stomach.

My plan is to continue with this Low-Carb-High-Protein diet that I was doing before but to substitute lunch with a Slim Fast. My snacks can be bananas and apples. I love fruit! I just need to buy more of it when we go grocery shopping. I will also have ONE day a week to cheat and eat whatever I want.

I have only one big consistent problem... keeping my motivation. I have this motivation for about a month, and then all of a sudden, it diminishes. This time around, I'm hoping to blog whenever I need to so I can keep this motivation up.

Being A Stay At Home Mom

I always hear people say that being a stay at home mom is easy. That I get to relax all day. That I'm lazy. I don't do anything. That they wish they could be a stay at home mom. While I DO love being a stay at home mom because I get to raise my kids myself and I'm not missing any milestones or a photo-op, it is still my JOB.

My husband works full-time, Monday - Friday. He brings in the paycheck. That is HIS job. Everyone always sees this type of work as a JOB. My husband's job is acceptable in the "working community". But being a stay at home mom isn't. Because I'm at home, it's not seen as work. 

Our work hours are different. He works 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. I work 16-18 hours a day, 7 days a week. I DO have to sleep...

Since no one seems to think I do anything at my JOB, I've taken the liberty to write down every single thing I did for one day. NOTHING has been added or left out. I hope after this, you'll see that being a stay at home mom is MUCH harder than it seems...

I went to bed at 12 Midnight...
My Day

5:12am - I wake up, I need to pee
5:25am - Husband opens bedroom door loudly, jolting me from my just accumulated sleep.

7:00am - Officially Wake up & get dressed

7:10am - Make breakfast(cereal) for my 5 year old son
7:15am - Make my sons lunch for school

7:19am - Repeatedly tell my son to stop messing with my keys & to eat breakfast

7:25am - Help my son brush his teeth & hair. Get his clothes for him. Brush MY teeth
7:32am - Make coffee
7:44am - Realize my husband forgot quarters for laundry in the car...I had asked him the night before to bring them upstairs.

7:45am - Pour my coffee in my to-go cup

7:46am - Leave to take my son to Kindergarten(I bring the stroller down our flight of stairs, go back upstairs, grab my 18mo. old daughter from sleep, walk down stairs with coffee and baby in arms. Get her in the stroller with some Cheerios and we're off!)

8:00am - Drop him off at school, walk back home

8:34am - Arrive back home(bring daughter upstairs, then go back down to bring up the stroller)
8:35am - Potty #2 for me! (After 2 minutes, my daughter barges in a demands to be breastfed. Lasts about 5 minutes. Then I look up SAHM photos on my phone[like the one u see up top]. I hear baby playing with my phone charger in the next room. I call her name 10 times, she doesn't come. I say "Boob?" and she'll come for that! I get up but as I do, I have to prevent my daughter from dropping the phone in the toilet.
8:50am - Done with my potty time.

8:53am - I finally change her 1st diaper of the day and clothe her. As I do this, I miss a call about my sons dentist appointment.

9:00am - I eat a bowl of cereal & give my daughter her own little bowl

9:15am - Clean cereal mess that she made

9:20am - Breastfeed for 10 minutes

9:35am - Get her strawberries for a snack

9:41am - Abandons strawberries for GoldFish
9:45am - I finish uploading some pix of a birthday party to Facebook on my phone(during this time she climbs all over me, I get her a Go-gurt snack, she takes apart my wallet and my cards and money are everywhere, grabs the phone from me repeatedly, I read her 3 books multiple times)

11:30am - Finally done with uploading photos & I can't seem to keep my eyes open -_-
12:00pm - I go downstairs to get quarters from the car

12:04pm - Organize laundry. Baby bumps her head. She sits on my lap and "helps" me sort clothes.
12:16pm - Go downstairs to put in 2 loads of laundry(we only have 2 washers and 2 dryers in our side of the apartment complex) 

12:20pm - Come upstairs, START cleaning dishes & kitchen

12:25pm - I hear "Uh OH!" She has spilled water on the carpet, all over herself, and up her nose.

12:39pm - Stop dishes. Mailman at the door with package.

12:40pm - Put chicken nuggets in oven for baby girl

12:42pm - Continue dishes.

12:44pm - Stop dishes again, she wants me to open a Go-gurt for her
12:50pm - Finish dishes, give baby girl her nuggets, go downstairs to wash a 3rd load of laundry. Put first 2 loads in dryer.

1:00pm - Leave home to get son from school(repeat stroller down stairs)

1:20pm - Pick up son, let him play for 5-10 minutes at school yard. Had to break up an argument between him and a friend of his.

1:42pm - Get back home from our walk from school (repeat stroller & baby upstairs)

1:45pm - Get 2 loads of laundry from the dryer, put 3rd load into dryer.

1:53pm - Come back upstairs

1:55pm - What's for lunch? Shrimp Stir Fry!

2:05pm - Change baby girl diaper & put down for a nap

2:15pm - Continue cooking lunch, chopping veggies...

2:21pm - Get son to nap...baby girl is still awake

2:22pm - Back to cooking

2:30pm - Husband if off work and on his way home. I decide to finally make the bed and clean the living room so HE can have a clean home.

2:40pm - Go downstairs to get 3rd load of laundry

2:45pm - Back upstairs with 3rd load and I plate my lunch

2:51pm - Sit down for lunch & go through mail

3:10pm - Husband gets home from works. Right away he wants me to call our sons dentist

3:20pm - I watch a talk show called Anderson. A little break :)

3:45pm - Husband gets mad about the day(s) of our sons movie shoot(It's during the weekday and he's mad that he may have to take the day off work to take us)

3:55pm - I reschedule dentist appointment for our son

4:00pm - I shower. (Both kids come in & out of the bathroom to pee, poop, see me, ask me questions...all the things you can think of, while I try to relax for an hour.

4:55pm - Out of shower

5:00pm - Get dressed. Baby girl is with me and wants me to read her another book.

5:05pm - Breastfeed baby girl, Change diaper, do my make-up. Baby girl takes my make-up and makes a mess.

5:50pm - Make sure diaper bag is ready to go

6:00pm - Make a quick trip to the mall with the whole family.

7:50pm - Get back home

7:53pm - Get baby girl a yogurt. 

 After this, I would usually fold all the laundry, but this night the hubby wanted to watch a movie and have some wine together. I DID NOT oppose, but I did consider watching this movie and folding clothes at the same time. That wouldn't have been much fun for either of us. So I waiting until the next day to fold the laundry. FYI, Laundry is my LEAST favorite chore. Ugh....

I should mention though, that during our movie, we had to STOP the movie about 4-5 times because the kids either needed us to get something, open something, needed food... I got the kids to sleep at about 9:30pm. That included me helping BOTH kids brush their teeth, get dressed in PJ's, my husband read our son a story while I sang to our daughter to relax her. After getting them to bed, I was finally able to enjoy the short amount of time I had to spend alone with my husband.

During the writing of this blog, I was taken away multiple times my diaper changes, cleaning, kids bumping heads, bathroom breaks, making dinner, etc... baby girl was on my lap trying to bang on the keyboard for half the time I was typing this all up.

*And now my daughter bumps her lip in the living room, I comfort her, and she is on my lap again as I type this*

I really hope that this has opened some peoples eyes into the life of a stay at home mom (SAHM). This IS only one day in my life. Sometimes we're gone all day visiting family so those days will be different. Sometimes I take walk the kids to the park after their naps...but this is a common enough day for me to write about. 

Remember to appreciate all SAHM that you know. They work their asses off! Treat them with love and respect the WORK they do. Our jobs as mothers never end. We can't quit. We can't apply for another family. We're stuck with the ones we have, and even though it can get REALLY rough at times, we all love being with our kids. 

Invisible Children vs. Susan G. Komen

The reason I chose to compare the charity organization Invisible Children (the guys behind the viral video Kony 2012) against Susan G. Komen is because recently a lot of people were outraged about the breast cancer charity when they decided to pull funds from Planned parenthood. Then the people fell in love with the charity when they found out the CEO would resume funding a few days later.

First, if you haven't seen the Kony 2012 video yet, go here.... http://m.youtube.com/watch?desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DY4MnpzG5Sqc&v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc&gl=US

Okay, so I have a lot of friends who support IC and Kony 2012, but I have some who are either skeptical or completely against IC. These friends post blogs of peoples opinions and "facts" that are against Kony 2012, but these blogs fail to cite where they get their information from... They are a lot of opinions really.

Im here to put out the facts. I will tell you now that I am getting my facts on these two charities from CharityNavigator.com. A credible source.

First lets start with Salarys of the Founders of Invisible Children and Susan G. Komen. IC co founders Jason Russel and Laren Poole make a combined salary of about $180,000 a year. JASON makes $89,000 a year while LAREN makes $84,000 a year. Susan G Komen founder Nancy Brinker makes $417,000 a year alone! That's nearly half a Million dollars a year! Let's also mention that the IC is in San Diego, CA while Komen is in Dalas, TX. Everyone knows that the cost of living in California is MUCH higher than in Texas. The average cost of a house in California is $580,000 while the average cost of a house in Texas is $276,000(trulia.com). Raising a family is very expensive and as you can see here, raising a family for Nancy Brinker will be much easier than for Jason Russel.

IC currently has 3 out of 4 stars on charitynavigator.com. Komen has 4 out of 4. These are based on opinions of people like you and me. Sort of like Yelp! Have you ever been to an amazing restaurant, go on Yelp to review it but then see some bad reviews and wonder 'what the hell is wrong with that guy'? Yeah, this COULD be the issue with why IC. Even though 3 out of 4 is not bad at all, it doesn't surpass Komen. But how many reviews are actually for each organization? Komen has 645 and IC has only 29. We need to give IC a little while longer to get a decent rating from them.

IC started in 2003 and Komen started in 1982.

IC has 80.5% of their donations go to their cause while Komen has 82.5% go to theirs. Both very good

Another thing I keep hearing is that the IC uses all their money for their film making. This is untrue. As I've previously stated that over 80% goes to their cause, they spend only 3.2% of their donations on advertisings. Komen spends over 9%. Komen spends 3 times more on "their film making" than IC does. I guess all those TV commercials you see 5 times a day can get pretty expensive

My Opinions

I think Invisible Children is a great organization. I don't think a lot of people REALLY watched the Kony 2012 video. Some are claiming things about the video that are just untrue. A lot of people don't understand that the videos purpose was to get Joseph Kony "famous". It was a different way to get your attention about evils that are happening in our world, and guess what? It worked. Weather or not you agree with Kony2012 or Invisible Children, THEY still got you talking about the issues in Africa...didn't they?

No one deserves this kind of treatment. NO BODY! Okay, maybe Kony himself, but only for him to know what it feels like to have your face and body disfigured....

People say that the video simfies the issue in Africa. Think about it tho...that's a good thing. Have you ever donated money to help abused animals after Sarah McClauchan made you feel like shit on her sad ass commercials? Did you "share" that commercial on Facebook? Most likely not. But IC got you talking about the issue and got you really thinking about it.

 

If you don't wanna support IC or Kony 2012, then don't. You have your freedom of opinion. But don't preach about problems in the US and diss what IC is trying to do in Africa if you aren't gonna help either country.

My main point: look the FACTS before you support or oppose a cause. Any cause. This is worth looking into.

Weight Loss Mission: Current Weight, Goals, and Food

So it's been a week since I started weight watchers again. It's been a good week. Not great, but that's my fault. I'm still happy :)

I started last week at 195lbs and now im 192!!!! Yes, I gained weight during the holidays (15lbs) but who didn't :-P And on Thursday I weighed myself and I had lost 4lbs since Monday, but I had 2 home made burritos on Friday instead of one, and McD's out of hunger desperation on Saturday night :-S So that's why this is a good week, but not a GREAT week. But this week will be better!

So, everyone has been asking me what exactly do I eat to lose the weight. I can eat pretty much anything I want, but Weight Watchers isn't about dieting, its about learning portion control and eating healthier...getting away from the fast food and processed crap. But I have a pic of what I eat for breakfast...

This is my breakfast pretty much every morning. 3 Egg whites loaded with spinach & mushrooms(1 point), half a banana(1 point), 2 pieces of whole grain HIGH FIBER toast with margarine(4 points). The more fiber a food has, the lower in points it will be. Most slices of bread are 2 points but the one I have it 80 calories a slice and has 5g of fiber. You can eat as many veggies as you want! No points! You can season your food how ever you want so your food is always flavorful.

I hope to loose more weight this week...my GOAL weight is 145. I got 42 more pounds to go!!!!

Weight Loss Mission: RESTART!

Today is the day that I restart my weight watchers weight loss mission. I am on a mission to get down to a size 6. But more importantly, I want to be completely happy with myself and I want to set a good health example for my kids.


To restart today, I weighed myself and I am 188lbs. That means I've gained 8lbs. during this holiday season. But that's okay because I still am beautiful and I'm healthy and I'm on a mission to lose it!

I love myself enough to not let my weight dictate who I am and how happy I can let myself be.

I WAS 200lbs. when I first started this whole journey, so I am still proud to say that I will NEVER see that number on a scale again.

I hope to lose 5lbs. in 2 weeks. And hopefully by Christmas 2012, I will be a brand new me!

Wish me luck! ^_^

Birth and Baby Fair in San Francisco!

Hello Everyone!

On Saturday June 25, 2011, I had the privilege to go to the Birth and Baby Fair in San Francisco's Fort Mason Center in the Marina District. When we went, the first 150 families got free bags of coupons and free stuff. 

What mom doesn't like FREE diapers?!

One awesome thing I noticed when we walked in was the changing table by the bathrooms. They had compostable diapers from sizes 1 - 6 for parents to use when changing their kid. I LOVED THEM! Cloth diapers are almost impossible for us right now because we live in an apartment and don't have our own washer and dryer, so these diapers seemed to be a GREAT fit for a family like us. 

I also pre-signed up for a workshop; Baby Sign-Language. The gentleman was very humorous. Not only did I learn a few simple signs such as "milk", "airplane", "poop", "more", and "food"... I also learned "margarita" and "horny"! LOL! He made the workshop so much fun. Other workshops include meet the doulas, baby sign language, vaccines, going green with baby, cloth diapering, baby wearing/slings and things, making your own baby food, pre and post natal yoga, and breastfeeding.

There are lots of activities for kids. My son and daughter did finger painting with all natural and edible paints. My daughter was 6 months old at the time and I didn't have to worry about her eating it. They also had face painting which my son LOVED! He got a Batman face... haha.

There was also a photographer there that was taking pictures for a contest. It was to win a free photo shoot from her. Her company is called STINKIEPANTZ PRODUCTIONS. So many people voted for the photos that she gave out extra prizes! My kids and I won $50 off a family photo session. I can't wait! To see her work, go to http://www.stinkiepantz.com/

There are also free prizes you can win from strollers to photo sessions to clothing and toys! It's a great place!

You can buy tickets from the link below:

http://birthandbabyfair.ticketleap.com/t/YMD/

I get $2 of every ticket sold so please tell your friends to buy from me as well!!! :)

Hope to see you there on Sunday October 2nd! (10am - 4pm)

Weight Loss Mission: LOTS OF WALKING!

So with my son starting school on Monday (August 29th, 2011), I have to do a LOT of walking to get him to school. It's not really a far walk, but when I looked up the mileage, it's a pretty good distance to be walking everyday.

So from my home to his school, it's 0.4 miles. That's a total of 0.8 miles for me to take him to school. Then I have to pick him up, so that's another 0.8 mile round trip for me. In total, I'm walking 1.6 miles everyday! Today I took a little extra walk to Starbucks near my apartment and that added an extra 0.6 miles onto my walking today! W00t W00t!

I've just weighed myself and I'm down a total of 14lbs! I'm currently 186lbs. and that means I'm down 2 pounds in 3 days! It's amazing what walking can really do for weight loss.

Not to mention I feel SO much healthier now that I'm walking a lot. Walking has always been my favorite form of exercise but I honestly haven't done as much as I would have liked to in the past. (This next part may be a little too much for some, but we're all adults here right? We've all dealt with this...) I've also noticed that I'm not so constipated anymore. I always felt bloated and whatnot, and I DO KNOW that walking does help with that, but I didn't know it could be so fast or THAT good! LOL!

I just feel GREAT over all... physically and emotionally. I have the support and love from the people I care about most and that's the best.