Potluck...

I signed up for a potluck at my school for Friday. The theme is Oktoberfest. I'm pretty sure Oktoberfest takes place in September.

What do you suggest I take for an Oktoberfest potluck in October? Keep in mind my limited capabilities in the kitchen.


P.S.
I just looked up Oktoberfest and this one site said that it lasts from September to early October. So I guess our Oktoberfest potluck on Friday isn't so weird.

Decisions...

I was talking to my mom on Sunday about the graduate program I told you about a few days ago. I told her I just wasn't sure about all the work I'm going to need to do just to get in (I'm going to have to take the GRE...blek). Is my Masters in Special Education really what I want to do?

She told me about this radio program she had listened to about making decisions. When you have a decision to make and you're not sure what to do, put the decision into three categories: 10 minutes, 10 months and 10 years. Then ask yourself how you're going to feel about it after those time frames.

Well, I thought about it and decided that...

• In ten minutes I would probably still wonder if I wanted to do it.
• In ten months if I didn't do it I would probably be kicking myself for missing the opportunity but if I did do it I would almost be finished.
• In 10 years the hard work would be a thing of the distant past and I'd have my Masters.
  

So, my decision is made. I'm going to sit this one out. Just kidding, I'm going for it. Thanks Mom.

For some funnies here's Kita looking like she could be in Star Wars.

True Fan...

I started the day on Saturday in orange for UTEP and ended it in red for Tech.


It didn't help either school. Oh bother.

Fit Friday

The weight loss plateau...it should be a four letter word. Being in one of these is so frustrating. You work hard, do what you need to be doing and then you get on the scale and it hasn't budged. Makes you want to say,"What the beep?"

I was fortunate in my weight loss in that I only hit a wall twice. However, John has hit plateaus that last for months. They're terrible.

The good thing about plateaus is that it means that you really have lost a significant amount of weight. Your body is smaller now which is awesome but it also means that you don't burn as many calories because you're not lugging around as much body.

When you hit one of these you need to pay close attention to the calories you're taking in. You may be taking in too many to keep the pounds coming off.

Here's Prevention's calorie calculator.

If you're at the right calorie intake then you may want to look at your exercise. Crank it up a little bit and add some resistance training if you haven't already. Building muscle means you'll be burning more calories.

Another thing I learned with the Biggest Loser is to eat 5-6 small meals throughout the day. This keeps your metabolism going. I learned that my meals were small so that I had time in between them to burn off my calories. The theory is that you don't want to take in too many calories at one time that you won't be able to burn by the next time you eat.

During weight loss here was a sample day of eating for me six days out of the week (for me to lose weight my calorie intake was 1200-1400 a day):

Breakfast:
Package of instant oatmeal
Yoplai lowfat yogurt

Morning Snack:
20 grapes
string cheese

Lunch:
1/2 peanut butter sandwich
2-3 celery stalks cut up

Afternoon Snack:
4 broccoli spears
.5 oz of raisins

Dinner:
Pinto beans (1/2 cup), salsa (1/2 cup), brown rice (1/3 cup) and corn (1/4 cup)

Evening Snack:
apple (3/4 cup slices) and mozzarella cheese (1 oz)

These are just some tips and tricks I've learned over the last couple of years mostly from the Biggest Loser online. I'd love to hear some more.

Hope you're having a fabulous Friday.

Update...

• Your comments from my last post made me laugh.

• I didn't wrestle Kita but I did tackle her. (Don't worry she liked it. It was more of a hug tackle than a wrestle one.)

• I didn't really have a bad day yesterday. I was just pretty feisty when I was writing my post. I was all fired up.
  

• I cooked tonight for the first time (during the week) in two weeks.
  

• Based on some great recommendations from GVZ and Dreams 2009, I'm going to start whipping out the crock pot more often. I used it last weekend to melt Velveeta. Does that count?

• Tomorrow I'm going to an information session at work to learn about this program being offered at our school starting in January. If I do it I'll have my Masters degree in Special Education in a year. I'm already thinking about it.

Have a great day tomorrow. I know I will. I usually get a little giddy when the weekend starts to get closer.

Two parts happy, one part melancholy...

That's my genetic makeup. I am generally happy but I get in these little moods sometimes. Like right now I feel like picking a fight with someone. Anyone want to go?

Maybe I'll just wrestle Kita.

Serious Student...

That's who I'm married to...a very serious student.


John is taking an online graduate level course towards his Masters in electrical engineering. He tries to explain concepts to me from what he's studying. He's funny.

I LOVE football season...

I don't really love football but I've always looked forward to football season. Maybe because it's such a fall thing and I do love the changing of the seasons.

I actually kind of understand it now too.

A dirty mind is a terrible thing to waste...

Didn't someone say that on Steel Magnolias?

Well, yesterday I was getting the house ready for company while college football was on in the background. I turned off the vacuum cleaner to hear an announcer doing his football talk about one of the players and I started giggling. It just didn't sound quite right.

Speaking of giggling, did you watch the season premiere of The Office? If you haven't then you should. It's hilarious. I've watched it twice.

Fit Friday...

We made it to Friday...this is cause for celebration. I'm mentally celebrating as you're reading this.

I'm in a bit of a fast/healthy food slump. To save time during the week for the last few weeks we've been eating Lean Cuisines and Smart Ones for dinner. I'm bored.

Do you cook during the week? Have any tasty, healthy meals I could cook up next week that take 30 or less minutes to prepare?

Totally off the subject, I'm listening to Snow Patrol radio on Pandora right now. John calls this my "Melancholy Mary" music. I'm not exactly melancholy right now but I am really really ready for the weekend to get started.

Hope you have a great one.

Kitchen Spice...

I wanted our house to smell like cookies so I bought the closest thing to it that Bath and Body Works offers...Kitchen Spice.

It's a very friendly scent don't ya think?

Two Questions...

1. Is this the largest head you've ever seen on a child?


2. Do you think I'm excited or coming down from a tantrum in this picture?

Maybe it's just a really crazy angle but I'm a little amazed I was able to keep my head up. All my baby fat was in my face apparently.

We have sweet mamas...

For our anniversary my sweet mama and step dad sent us this...


John's sweet mama and step dad sent us a card that said, "You two make marriage look like the best thing that could happen to two people."

We're lucky to have moms like ours.

Fit Friday

I stumbled upon a weight maintenance website called Maintenance for Life and found this article about people who had long term weight loss. I wanna be part of the 5%.

Secrets of the 5%- What You Can Learn from Successful Dieters--
By Mike Kramer

(found on sparkpeople.com)

More elusive than Bigfoot, more mysterious than the alien residents of Area 51—they’re so anonymous, we’re tempted to ask "do these people actually exist?" I’m here to tell you that YES they do exist. You may even know one or two.

They’re the legendary 5% of people who have lost weight and actually kept it off for the long-term. If you’ve never met one these people before, don’t be surprised. They prefer to stay relatively unknown. Having discovered the prized secret to a healthy lifestyle, they tend to enjoy their status and privacy.

But what about the other 95% of us who have struggled with weight loss and continue to do so? Are we doomed to a life of frustration and failure, with no promise of good health in sight?

Of course not! At SparkPeople, I’ve witnessed a lot of these 5%ers in action. I wondered, what do they do differently than the rest of us? After a non-scientific review, I was able to boil it down to a handful of key strategies and tactics that are pretty common among people who succeed. For the first time, their secret is out. The doors are blown off. Join me in exploring these secrets and use them in your own life. Pretty soon, you can be part of this group too.

The 5%…

1. …Make It Public. The 5% generally don’t keep their weight loss efforts to themselves. They recruit supporters. They ask for help. They swap war stories with friends. They give and take encouragement. Often a goal buddy is involved, or at least a positive, supportive friend who holds the dieter accountable. Studies show that just by writing down or announcing your goals, you automatically increase your chances of success. Keeping a Community Journal or blog is a non-threatening, productive way to make your goals public.


2. …Pay Attention. A permanent, healthy lifestyle is created on purpose. Planning, tracking, reading menus, asking questions, following progress reports—they’re all part of the 5% strategy of knowing what’s going on and preventing setbacks. This crowd doesn’t believe in fooling themselves or relying on chance to make things happen. Usually (if not always) aware of the foods they eat, and on the lookout for opportunities to stay active, they know that good health is no accident. Nutrition Trackers and Fitness Planners play key roles in this strategy.


3. …Enjoy Themselves. There’s a reason that a healthy lifestyle sticks around for this small minority. They make weight loss a positive experience and have fun with it. Because they feel good about their goals and their new habits, they also feel good about themselves and what they’ve accomplished. Programs based on negative messages, dread, resignation, or criticism are doomed to disappear. Optimists are proven to reach more goals than pessimists. They also live healthier, longer lives.


4. …Make Gradual Changes. The 5% know that permanent change is a process, not a 21-day event. Able to see what waits on the horizon, they spend time building a few small habits at a time, rather than diving into a program that’s totally incompatible with their current lifestyle. Too much too soon is like moving to a new country and expecting to adopt the new culture and language in a week. It works much better if you simply stick around and pick up a few bits and pieces at a time.



5. …Allow Themselves To Fail. It’s a guaranteed certainty. Every one of the 5% has failed at some point along their weight loss journey. The difference is that they learned to forgive setbacks and refused to beat themselves up. Every failure is simply one step closer to ultimate success. With this outlook, and using lessons learned along the way, they kept these setbacks from turning into full-fledged disasters.

Not so mysterious, now that you know their secrets, huh? A permanent, healthy lifestyle may be closer than you think!


Hope you have a great weekend with a lot of relaxation.

Thank you

Thanks for all of the anniversary wishes yesterday. You all are awesome.

My mom sent us two really pretty plants. Pictures to come, especially before they meet an untimely demise. Kidding, I have faith that we'll be able to keep these babies alive.

Well, for our 9th anniversary on 9-9-09 we ate Lean Cuisine panini's (I know, very romantic) and went to see the movie 9. I think John and I were the oldest people in the theater.

Did you notice that on yesterday's post I had 9 comments? How appropriate.

9 years ago today...

We took the marital plunge and have had a wonderful time ever since. My grandmother Mama T. told John before we got married that marriage isn't hard when you're married to your best friend. She was right.

Weekend Recap...

As you know I was flying solo this weekend while John was out in Vegas. He's back now-yay!!! He didn't win a jackpot-boo!!!

Here's how I kept myself occupied:

• Dinner and a movie with my friend Lauren. Dinner was fun fun fun. The movie was ok. I don't want to say what we saw because I don't want to influence anyone who wants to see it. The story line was funny but I think they needed to work on their character development. I didn't care about the characters at all.

• Shopping in the rain. I LOVED that. It doesn't happen out here too often.
  

• Washed our new 600 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets and put them on our bed. They're so soft and pretty.
  

• Celebrated my friend Natalie's 30th birthday. Here's a picture I lifted from her blog :).

• 

• Stayed up until almost 4am reading blogs, astrological personality trait websites (if you're a Cancer or a Gemini I can tell you all about you), watching music videos and taking self portraits.

This was my favorite video I watched...



You can imagine what I did on Sunday. I slept...for a very long time. I felt like I was in college again.

John's back, I'm in my pj's on a Monday morning drinking coffee out of my turtle mug...life is good.

Have a great Labor Day.

Up to no good...

Well, it's not that I'm up to no good but I am up and that's no good. It's 2:17am right now. Usually by now I've been sleeping and having crazy dreams for hours. I guess I'm all thrown off since John's out of town. He'll get back from Vegas tomorrow evening. I'm looking forward to hearing some crazy stories.

Speaking of crazy dreams though I'll tell you about one I had earlier this week. I was staying at my grandparent's house for some reason. These are my dad's parents,(Mama T and Papa T) they have both passed away. I was staying there by myself.

I woke up in the morning and in the kitchen I noticed some peaches in the sink and coffee that had just been brewed. I realized that someone else must be in the house so I walked around to see who was there. When I walked down the hall I saw that the light was on in my grandparent's room.

I knocked on the door and it was Mama T's voice coming from the bedroom. In my dream I knew she had passed away. I walked in and she was on her bed drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. I said, "Mama T., you're around." She said,"I'm always around, Maryellen." That was it.

The dream itself was short and seems like it might be a little creepy but it was really comforting. It was nice hearing Mama T's voice. I always liked how she said my name.

It's Nat Nat's B-day...

Happy 3rd birthday sweet Natalie. John and I miss you and love you very much. Have a wonderful day Cha Cha.



Love,

Fit Friday

I look back at pictures like this one from 2006 and I'm motivated to keep on trucking. I was completely happy with how I looked but I was doing things that were going to cause major problems in my future.

My habits back then were HORRIBLE. I ate anything and everything I wanted and exercised maybe a handful of times in an entire year.


I'm so thankful and happy for my lifestyle change but still I take it one day at a time. I have to do that or I get completely overwhelmed.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. John's living it up in Vegas this weekend but don't worry Mom, I have plans for Friday and Saturday night.

Slowing Time Down...

Does it ever scare you how fast time goes by? Most of the time for me it doesn't and then it does and I start to obsess about it slightly.

I want to slow it down just a little...

Random ramblings...

I have to say I think my alohaness might be back for awhile. Sweet. I'm in a pretty consistent awesome mood. So it's only been since yesterday but it's a start.

This week has been pretty good. I had an extremely odd female moment with someone today. I think we were bonding. I MUST leave it at that.

Do you have songs that when you realize how much you like them you play them over and over? I'm currently like that with Pink's song, Please don't leave me. Don't worry, I don't relate to it I just like it. Although John is leaving me on Thursday. He's going to Vegas with a bunch of his old fraternity brothers until Sunday. I hope he wins a jackpot.

I think it may be coming back...

I really focused yesterday on getting my alohaness back and I would say I was 80 maybe 85% successful. I like it. Here's going for more.

Thanks for the positivity...you all definitely helped.