This blog has nothing to do with losing weight.

This blog has nothing to do with losing weight. I just watched Julie/Julia which is a movie that is about.....food. Food...when I am trying to lose weight, ha ha! The movie really inspired me. The "Julie" of the child is a woman who was bored and underwhelmed (is that a word?) in her life and decides to cook her way through the 524 recipes in Julia Child's cookbook. She blogs about her experiences over a year and gets more and more fans and eventually is asked to publish a book. Needless to say....that book became a movie. What triggered this idea was the fact that Julie was turning 30.
I am 27 ...will be 28 in just a few months. I am happily married and the lucky mother of a beautiful 16 month old girl. I am proud of what I have accomplished. But...

But...I recently was invited to my high school 10 year reunion! 10 YEARS! Where did the time go? YIKES! I can't help thinking, "Have I done everything I imagined doing in ten years?" the answer is a big fat "NO!" But who has, really? Does anybody ever say I have accomplished everything I dreamed, exactly the way I planned, and in the time I imagined it would take? NO.

First, let me say that I have always wanted to be married and be a mom. I LOVE being a mom. It is the most wonderful and indescribable feeling in the world. Being a mom has made me think in different ways than I used to think. When my daughter gets a little older and grabs my hand and looks me in the eye and in her sweet little voice proudly proclaims "Mommy, when I grow up I want to be a ....(dancer) (writer)(scientist)(engineer)(doctor)(The President of the United States of America) I want to be able to kneel down to her level, look her in the eye and as I tuck some of her unruly hair behind an ear (which looks just like her daddy's) say "Butterfly, you can be anything you want to be!" but I want to say so much more, "You can be anything as long as you try..."

I want to be a writer. I always have. I don't know if I am any good. But I love to write. More than that, I love the way a book can take you away, can get you lost and then can bring you back again to reality when you close it. A book sits there, on a shelf, on a table, and promises you a release. Promises you a vacation, if only for a few minutes. I want to be able to do that for someone.

I am writing a book. The first one I have ever attempted. I have written over 100 pages! I am not sure if its any good or not. I don't know if I will ever do anything with it, if I will ever try to get it published. All I know is that I love writing it, and I will finish it. Someday, when my daughter is feeling discouraged about life, as we all do at some point, I want to be able to hand my book to her, jammed into a dusty 3 holed binder, and say to her "Honey, one day I decided to write a book. It was my dream in life, and though it took me 27 years to even have the courage to type the first word. I did it, and I finished it. I never truly believed I could do it. There were probably a lot of other people who never believed I could do it. But I did." and I am hoping she will take the binder, wipe the dust off the cover, flip through the pages and smell the old paper (I love that smell) and then she will read it. Read every page. When she is done, even if it was horrible and she is relieved I never tried to publish it, I hope that she takes a message from it. I hope she sees that her mother set out to do something that I always wanted to do and I did it. I simply...did it. I hope that when she sets out to do something, she will go beyond just doing it. She will push it to its limits and try and try again. She will look failure in the eye bravely and continue on. And if she finds that her goals change, she will attack her new goals just as strongly as the one before.

So I will finish my book. If for no other reason than to show my daughter I can. To show her that anyone can do anything that they set their mind to....if they only try.

It is New Year's Eve. 10:13pm. 2009 will end in less than 2 hours and 2010 will begin. I will not be celebrating the new year by partying or getting drunk. I will be spending it working on my writing. So Happy New Year everyone (re:Sarah, who is probably the only person who reads my blog....possibly Nathalie, too) and here is to setting goals and setting examples.


Happy New Year!

The Last Day of 2009

So today is my last day of pigging out! YAY! I am trying to convince myself that I am excited about this. Honestly, my main goal is just to be healthier. If I want a soda or a bag chips, I am not going to deny myself, but I want to be aware of what it does to my body. I want to be a healthier person all around. Today I went grocery shopping and got lots of yummy healthy food. Fruit, yogurt, cottage cheese, veggies. I think I am going to set my calorie intake at 1500 calories a day. I am not sure what i should set my calories burned goal as yet so if you know where I can find a website that will tell me what I should burn, realistically and healthily, please send it my way.
So today I set up my own workout on the Wii Fit, I figure I will change it every week so I won't get bored. Today I worked out for 45 minutes and burnt 175 calories.

Tomorrow I will be posting measurements, calories consumed and burned and work out times. I am thinking of posting....gasp.....pictures.

Everyone enjoy the last day of 2009, tomorrow the hard work starts!

Gimme a Break!

I am feeling unmotivated today, so I hate to admit it...but I am now calling today my "Break Day". I think I overdid it on the cleaning/workout yesterday and it doesn't help that certain...ahem...monthly visitor ...has come to call. So I have spent the morning getting an early start on my class that begins on the 9th. I did step on the wii balance board to do my daily weigh-in and body test. I found I have gained 2 pounds...ugh, but my body test is improving! Then I felt guilty for not doing any workouts and forced myself to do 15 minutes of Yoga, which actually made me feel slightly better. Tomorrow is my last day of endless snacking and "practice" workouts. I have already made my grocery list to include stuff for smoothies and salads and NO SNACKS!

One more day...until the real challenge begins. For now though.....I am going to take a quick nap.

I was feeling very lazy today...but after awhile of sitting on the couch thinking about how I didn't want to do anything, I finally got up and got to work. Today I am focusing on the living room. I have been dusting, organizing and de-cluttering. I even got four new frames hung up on the walls. I am not quite done yet, but it's a whole lot better.
I figured out that I can add other activities on to my Wii Fit so I can keep track of calories burnt outside of the game. I am sure it is not 100% accurate, but pretty close. So after cleaning I added that time on the wii and saw that I burnt 400 calories! I worked out for 45 minutes today and burnt an additional 160 calories. So not a bad day at all. I also noticed that after doing the ten minute run again I wasn't nearly as tired as I was yesterday! So that must mean it's doing something! I also figured out that I can add my waist measurements to the wii fit graph, too. So I will be doing that starting on Sunday...when I start watching my diet and upping the workout!
Unfortunately, the Wii Fit is telling me that I have gained 1.5 pounds since yesterday...hmmmmm. But I suppose your weight does fluctuate!
Well...I know this is a short blog for today but I think I might try to get my daughter to play in the snow for awhile!

Whew...what a busy day it has been so far. I don't know if it is the exercise or just that I have clear goals in mind but I woke up today feeling refreshed and ready to start the day. After breakfast, I started cleaning and got my daughter's room cleaned. I packed up about half of her toys in a big rubbermaid container. She has too many toys for a 16 month old, anyway. When she starts getting bored of her toys now, I can just switch them out with the other toys I packed instead of buying new ones. Her room is all organized, separate bins for different types of toys, a basket for animals and a basket for dolls. This is how I usually keep it, but it only last a few days. i am hoping since there is now half the toys it will be easier to keep up with. I now only have to organize her closet, but I am holding off doing that until I buy those nifty vacuum bags to store all the clothes she has outgrown.
Then Harliegh and I turned off the tv and decorated an Anniversary card for my parents and a Birthday card for her other Grandma with some paint and sponges adn stickers. After lunch we sat and read through nearly 10 books! Then I straightened the living room.

At naptime I started my Wii Fit workout. I did the same thing as yesterday, picking workouts from different categories, but I tried not to do the same one as yesterday. I was a little sore from yesterdays workouts, especially in my arms and abs, but I was ready to do some more. As I was nearing my goal of 30 minutes of working out something compelled me to attempt a 10 minute run! YIKES! But I did it, and I finished it! I am thinking I might try this everyday at the end of my workout. I want to try running outside when the weather gets better so this should help train me for that. Plus, I burned 60 calories on just that one workout. I felt the pain afterwards....but now...I feel great!

So for today I have worked out 30 min and burned 150 calories. Not Bad. Oh, and I forgot to mention that I did an additional 30 min workout last night and burnt another 130.

I need to work on my writing...it is my only goal I have ignored. Does this blog count as writing?

Wii...WEEEE!

So today is my first day trying out real workouts on the Wii. Before I just kinda played around with some of the games and random workouts. I am really liking the Wii Fit, I love how it tracks your calories burned and time working out as you do it so if you have a certain goal in mind you can aim for that. I started by doing some warm-ups and then going through different routines. The Wii Fit has options to target specific areas: Lifestyle, Health, Youth and Form. You can pick one of these and then they have even more specific routines within these groups. For example, in Form you can choose to work on your Hips, Arms or Figure. I picked Figure today, then it sets up a routine of three different exercises that focus on the Figure. So today I went through and picked one routine in each of the 4 groups. Then I just went to the main options and did a few workouts from Yoga, Aerobics,Strength, and Balance until I hit 30 minutes of workout. This actually took me almost an hour because of all the tutorials, but once I start playing it more I can skip those. So in 30 minutes I burned 115 calories. Not too much, but once I get used to the routines i can pick out the ones that burn the most calories, also I will get better at doing the exercises and the wii will track that and I will be able to burn more on individual exercises. Besides the annoying tutorials, I really like the Wii Fit so far!
By the end of my workout I was sweating and "feeling the burn" as they say. Once I get used to the game in a few days or so I plan on moving up to 45 minutes. Eventually I want to try to get up before the baby and do 45 min in the morning and 45 min at naptime, and eventually 45 min in the evening. I also want to start lifting weights to work off that icky arm flab.
I should also add that starting on January 1st I plan on focusing on my diet. I admit I am giving myself a week so I can enjoy the last of my Christmas goodies. Then its on to eating healthy and tracking my calories: consumed and burned. I am hoping that we will be moving to another apartment in April and this other place has a pool and fitness room that I can use to workout as well. Plus, as soon as it warms up I can start taking my long walks again!
As far as my other goals go, my house is a mess. But in my defense, we just took down the Christmas tree and I still ahevn't quite figured out where I am going to put all the new toys. I did, however clean out one of the hallway closets and plan on organizing the baby's room today.
I set up a little corner in our living room for educational activities. I have the Kitchen play set and all the play food there along with a poster of the Alphabet and Numbers and a dry-erase board. I am planning on doing the Sesame Street thing and picking a letter, color, number, and shape to focus on for the week. I will have a box with items that fit the letter, color, number or shape of the week and I will show Harliegh ( that's my daughter) each object and point out certain things. For example: if the color of the week is red and the shape square I can show her a red, square block and say "Look Harliegh, this is a block. It's red and it has four sides so it is a square." I also can center some of her daily activities around these things, like "Let's where a red shirt today" or, "You can have an apple today. Apples are red" I tried to do this before and it worked pretty well but I got away from it when the holidays got closer. She also got a ton of cool art supplies that will help us stay occupied this long winter!
So that's a start on most of my goals. Maybe I will even have time to write later tonight, I have a short story in mind, so maybe I will get that started!

New Year's Resolutions

This is just a short blog to get me started...it is the day after Christmas, afterall, and I am exhausted. This is my weight loss/get fit blog and I will be using it to track my progress (or....hopefully not...lack thereof). My dear husband got me Wii Fit Plus fro Christmas and right away I opened it and set it up. After lots of instructions and body tests I found out that my BMI is 22 and my weight is 145. Right away, I discovered two things: 1) my scales in my bathroom are inaccurate and 2) I am back to my pre-baby weight! But....as all you mom's out there know...even if you get back to pre-baby weight, your body isn't quite the same anymore, and probably never will be. My trainer on Wii fit (I should name her....how about....I don't know...send me your suggestions) anyway....my trainer on wii fit suggested I lose 5 lbs. My goal is to lose 10 and to tone up some "trouble" areas. The wii also informed my that my Wii Fit Age is 44...because I obviously am weak and shaky. :(
Overall, I am not too disappointed in my results! I really just want to feel comfortable with my looks once again. Being a mom, a have very little time to myself and often go a few days without showering or even looking in the mirror, so when I do come across my reflection, I am not impressed. At All.

While I am at it, I guess I should just let this blog be a way for me to track all of my New Year's resolutions. So let me list them for you: As you can guess, the first one is what I just wrote 1) lose weight/tone. 2) Focus on watching less television. I have a 16m old daughter and I am afraid that she is starting to watch tv too much. I don't put her in front of the tv all day and expect it to entertain her, but I do like to have to the tv on for background noise. I don't mind if she watches Sesame Street and I have my few shows I like after she goes to bed, but I really should cut back on daytime television hours and do more educational activities. 3) Write more. I have been working on a book, I don't think it's all that fantastic or anything, but I do want to finish it just to say I did. Also, I am taking a creative writing class and I am not at all prepared for that! 4) Organize my house and keep it clean. My house isn't horrific by any means, just a little disorganized. I want to get it to the point that if a friend were to suddenly drop by, I wouldn't be completely embarrassed.

So I think that's it. I don't think any of them are unrealistic. But there they are. Of course, my main goal, and the one that I will be blogging on the most is losing weight! So until next time...Happy Holidays, everyone!