10 LBS and Counting.....

Fun Day out in The North Face, Canada

Girls Day Out (and my day off from counting calories)

My Doe This Year (Part of our families organic meat supply)

How My Son Packed It Out!!

My Son, Art Dog's Mule Buck (providing organic meat for us)

Just Before Our Town's "Turkey Trot" - my daugter was the first female across the finish line :-)

So this one is from summer, but I put it up because I'm so thankful we did that hard work now and have organic huckleberries for winter :-)

   I promised myself I would not post until I hit 129, and I've seen 128 now 3x, so I suppose I'm way overdue :-)
 -  I am thankful for the organic meat supply of elk, bears and deer that my family has harvested this season.  It is a healthy staple for my family.
 - I've been experimenting with soaking and boiling, and then sauteing grains such as barley, wheat, rye in place of pasta and white rice.  Its working out pretty well - healthier and more economical.
 - On my 5th week of counting calories and I am down 10 lbs and counting - encouraging :-)
 - I read most of Jillian's Book "Master Your Metabolism".....pretty deep reading.
 - Ran our Town's Turkey Trot 5K with my daughter and friend.  Was real proud my daughter was the first female finisher.  Also its the best time I've ever run, but don't tell anybody, I'm pretty slow ;-)  29 min, 18 sec.
     Over all, its been a good month and things are going along as they should, though it feels painfully slow :-)

Goals for this month include adding in weight training, and a grocery budget (YUCK!)

,

Gettin' Down to Business

 

So here's the thing......

I'm running out of a precious commodity.  In other words, the clocks ticken' and every day is a day closer to my big lifelong dream of seeing Hawaii Bikini clad with my hubby.  I have declared Marshall Law against Miss Belly Fat.  Her days are seriously numbered ;-)

 

The whole cleansing fast thing went okay, but for the agony, the results were, I gained it all back within a week.  UGH!  Here's some of my newest strategies, some of which are actually working - lol!!

 

- Back to boring ol' writing down my food in a journal.  Did I mention B-O-R-I-N-G?!?!  Truly, I've been reading in a lot of places that most people successful at weight loss do that.  Harrumph.

 

- Been having SUPER CRAZY OUTRAGEOUS FUN doing Zumba!!  From the time I was about 3, I took dance lessons.  Even in college I was on the dance line.  That part of me has just been laying dormant for years, but its in my blood.  Its always been a buried part of who I am waiting for the right opportunity to bust a move.  In short, its kind of like stepping into destiny.  My biggest challenge is not to be dead serious about doing it all perfect, mentally telling myself its okay to be sexy and remembering that the goal is to HAVE FUN all the while sweating like a pig ;-)

 

- "Hara hachi bu" taken from Oct 2012 Fitness Magazine.  Meaning you aren't supposed to eat until your stuffed!!  I do a lot better eating a variety of foods I enjoy, just use moderation.  As much as I abhor counting calories, its been an eye opening reminder that a dollop of peanut butter, sour cream or butter can be a non damaging 20 or 30 calories or it can be upwards of 200.  All too often I wasn't really honing in on that.

 

HAWAII FOR REAL!!

The Long Bridge Swim Finishers (beat by my daughter by 4 minutes!)

 The "Fasting Cleanse" i'm doing

New Gun My Hubby Bought Me for Running With















WELL HERE I AM......gulp.... getting soft. All summer long i seriously thought about ditching this blog but I just couldn't. Its maybe not exactly who I am, but more who I want to be and I just can't give up on it. Truth is, we've moved 15 miles outside of town and life is easier. Theres no mountain to have to hike up and down every day. There's no "making due" for groceries when we're out of something. There hasn't been any more higher altitude 7 mile runs. No backpacking trips either. I've settled for easy 2 mile jogs and for a long run well, maybe 4-6 miles. I've enjoyed the summer and watched my hips grow a few inches along the way. I hate to confess it, but its where I'm at, THE UGLY TRUTH. Oh i didn't totally give up or anything. My daughter and i trained for The 1.76 mile Long Bridge Swim, and completed it. She even beat me - that little stinker :-) I still cook with a lot of veggies and wild organic meat. My kids are all pretty buff and healthy, but somewhere along in "convenience" i kinda lost my edge.


    A bunch of my girlfriends and I decided to take the "The Love Language Challenge", pray and fast for our husbands. That has been good so far. For my part of the fasting I decided to do a "cleanse" regime with the above "Perfect Food" recommended to me by a naturopathic friend. Week One you skip a meal once a day and take a serving of this stuff. It was kind of hard choking it down, but it wasn't the end of the world. The first day I felt really good. After that it was just kind of "so so". Now I'm into the second week which involves doing 2 servings and one meal. Honestly, that hasn't gone so bad either. I was thinking it would be worse. Am feeling like the marriage thing is going pretty good too. All that makes me happy.

And on to the most exciting thing, and my big motivation to get back into "This Redneck Mama's Fitness Blog"...... HAWAII!!! That's right... I bought real bonafide tickets for Kauai. Now the pressure is really on. I've gotta whip myself back into step and go beyond if I wanna have fun running around secluded beaches with my husband wearing less than fat friendly attire ;-)

Bloomsday 2012!

 Our Gang - Elasta Woman, Kiana, Archer's Friend, Me, Archer, Sweet RoseMary

- Got Stopped by a cop on the way there for "driving the speed limit (too slow) on a Sunday through a school zone" as that seemed "suspicious"!
 - Broke Down 15 min from registration!!  Had to take a taxi with my band of friends and kids!!
 - Felt like puking my guts out as none of my friends would leave me and demanded to stay with me!!  Elasta Woman even ran BACK DOWN DOOMSDAY HILL to check on me!!
 - Consequently, I ran my fastest EVER!!  10 min miles x7!!
 - Hub rescued us as you can see :-)  It was a super fun day!!

Formidable February

Here are some fun pics from our trip to Post Falls for my son's CNA certification testing. He was in Euphoria at Cabelas, as was The Sock Fashion Expert at The Spokane Valley Mall ;-) Consequently, He Passed!!

Okay, I sure wish I could think of a more creative format for this blog. Every time I think about deleting it, i just can't, so I guess I will just push on with it........

Here are some encouraging accomplishments from the past month :

- daily sit ups - i mean EVERY DAY!! My "Abs Idol", or maybe the better word would be "Abs Mentor" Elasta Woman has this "200 assorted crunch routine" which she swears by and we are not talking about some kind of crispy dessert here. Apparently a mom of several kids has done it every day for years and she has a 6 pack that girls half her age would kill for. Anyhow, this "Super Mommy" of sorts, taught the special routine to our own Elasta Woman, who, in turn, taught it to me. The funny thing about working abs, which I have noticed a couple times now, is that when its working you get this bloated - pregnant look because your gut no longer hangs down aimlessly. This can cause one to become quite distraught and greatly disturbed, especially when one is doing all that work. NO WORRIES!! It actually starts looking better over time. The muscles just seem to "pick up" and carry along with them whatever is there. So, yes, I do have that odd look going, but it is only temporal and I am taking it as a good sign better things are to come ;-)

- forced myself to measure and weigh in, not a lot has changed.

- Also keeping an exercise log. It was helpful in determining why every time I run with the girls I feel like I have emptied myself into the trash compactor. Now mind you, these girls I run with are all teens and twenties and they are amazing athletes, but being significantly slower and in agony is not an excuse I should blame on age. Though I was doing some kind of work out every day, I was finding that my running was only weekly. I didn't really have a good base to be building off of. Since then, I'm trying to run several more times a week.

- increasing on the weights.

With the possibility of an upcoming move, it would be nice to lose some of this stubborn winter fat. I HATE dieting, but I suppose I should really focus harder on intake this upcoming month. YUCK!

Bloomsday AND THE BROWN OFFENDERS

http://liteonthemtn.blogspot.com/2012/01/bless-our-hom-and-other-stories-from-my.html

The second half of this story is my fitness post. I just thought it was funny, so I left it on my regular blog post. Hope you enjoy it!!

My Daughter and Ski Buddy
Me with Miss Moonbeamer

So its official. I'm going to try and do 365 Days of Sit Ups AGAIN! As I said before, I failed miserably last year and petered out some time in May or June, BUT I ended up having the best abd muscles I've ever had for those short months. Any how, I guess I could try doing it again :-) I'm not going to document every day because frankly, nobody cares :-) I'm just going to do some little updates and try to mix things up with hopefully a weekly post. Here's some things I did THIS YEAR:
- 4 mile ski trek with my daughter (2 miles up a mountain and 2 down) today. The pic of me is shortly before my crash and burn on the way down - lol!! Thankfully Miss Moonbeam didn't flip or tumble.
- A short run
- Another Ski trek by myself
- sit ups every day so far :-)
- started doing some weight lifting with the boys. That is a BIG NEW STEP for me.
- Measured and weighed in.