Let’s Go, No Carbs!

The past week was my official ‘no carb’ week. I did my best to stick to foods with zero to less than one carb per serving, no sugars, no diet soda (even though it is carb free), and even had a couple of more fatty meals, but I also at the end of the week moved up my no-carb to low-carb, and I will explain why in a moment.

I will gladly share my weight here, too, so to people who have seen me in the real world, don’t scoff at my weight compared to my size. I have been told more times than I can count (even by my doctors in the last six years), that I do not look as heavy as the scales says that I am or have ever been. I take that as a blessing, but that doesn’t change the fact that I find my weight to be an issue for me, especially where my depression is concerned.

Now onto the real meat of the post!

I started Monday morning with my typical weigh in. I say typical, because it has become a sort of ritual for me to weigh in before I get dressed for the day. I had to weigh daily for Noom when I started that back in December 2018, and I still find it a great way to keep tack of daily fluctuations in my weight based on what I have eaten or drank, and what kind of activity I did or did not do. So, I did my best to remember to weigh all week to keep a solid track of where things were at with my so-called ‘test’ for this blog post, and aside from totally spacing Tuesday morning, I’ve kept good track! So here’s the break down…

Weight Tracked

• Monday: 236.8 lbs (starting weight)
• Wednesday: 232.8 lbs
• Thursday: 232 lbs
• Friday: 230.8 lbs
• Saturday: 230 lbs
• Sunday: 230.2 lbs
• Monday: 229.2 lbs (ending weight)

As you can see, the week progressed with some decent loss (a whopping 7.6 pounds!), and I will fully admit that I lost much, much more than I thought I would.

What I Did

So as mentioned, my goal for the week was to go ‘no-carb’. As I mentioned above I did shift toward the end of the week into a ‘low-carb’, and my reasoning for doing so is that I was gaining more calories this way. (Not to mention that my body was extremely happy to have something other than canned tuna or eggs again, and no one had to listen to me be in tears wanting something different!) My specialized program through Noom has me with a goal of 1,200 calories a day, but eating zero carbs for the first few days, I found I was way under that mark. When I wound up at Chili’s Thursday with my kids (the husband works there and suggested we come in for lunch on our way home from the zoo), I decided on a no-carb version of a cheese burger. (And yes, it indeed is a very doable option!) The plus of having that burger was that it boosted my calories for the day. BIG TIME! Granted, the cheese and beef meant I was having much more fat than I had been enjoying all week, but it was all worth it. I felt kinda out of it and gross later in the day, but I’m still sure that was because I had way too much caffeine. (It was hot and I’m a sucker for a good iced or cold brew coffee…) This is the only time I broke my ‘no soda’ rule for the week. It’s not like I couldn’t have a diet soda while doing this ‘no-carb’ thing, but the extra sodium that’s in a soda is why I was avoiding it. My goal was to cut out all the ‘extra’ stuff that I didn’t need and new I could pretty much survive without. (However, I am currently craving a huge soft serve ice cream cone dipped in chocolate and a warm slice of fresh from the oven bread with butter. Mmmmm…) I broke that ‘no soda’ rule when I needed to settle my stomach and had my husband grab me a diet 7-UP from the shop on the corner by our complex. I figured even a few sips wasn’t going to fully break my progress, and sleep was much more important to me than anything that night.

By Friday I decided that I would be making the veggie soup that I always ate when I was still doing Weight Watchers (now WW), because I love veggies, it’s super filling, and it makes a ton! So even if I didn’t eat only that over the weekend, I would still have some going into the next week (this week).

But Remember

Now, keep in mind, I started this while also having that detox tea and taking Forskolin every day. There’s a good chance that Forskolin is why my body felt like it was betraying me after I had that bun-less burger, but it could also have just been the fact that I was exhausted that day and nothing felt ‘right’ after getting home. AND I was also back on a regular exercise schedule doing walk videos through YouTube and yoga DVDs I had bought about a year ago and have missed doing.

This kind of plan is not going to be for everyone, and I love breads and ice cream and candy way too much to give it all up for good. This is the type of thing I can see doing again every couple of months, maybe, or even a couple of zero carb days during the week. Does it work? Sure! But who’s to say that this time it didn’t work so much better than the last time I tried, due to the extras I was taking, and the added movement I was doing throughout the whole ‘experiment’? I guess the only way to really know, is to try it yourself.

Remember to always talk to your doctor before starting any sort of weight loss plan, to make sure what you are wanting to do will actually be safe for your system. Not every plan is for every body.

What’s Next

I am trying to find a good time frame this coming week or in the next for doing my intermittent fasting plan. I am going to spend a couple of days this week for sure testing what times during the day work best for me, and then my hope is to go into the following week with a more solid plan. My main goal for this coming week is to keep up with my workouts, the extras I am taking, and try to nail down solid times for this fasting gig. Oh, and to not completely pig out at Unity on Thursday, when I go see Skillet! Gonna rock my lil’ heart out and have completely planned on some fair-style junk food to get me through the night!

Admittedly, I almost gave up. I did this no-carb thing once before with the goal of a full week, back in April of 2018, and not only did I not lose the same amount of weight, I also gave up! I told myself five days was good, and to be honest, it was. I was proud of myself making it that far. However, that is precisely when I wanted to give up again this time. But I pushed through and encourage anyone who wants to try the no-carb thing to not give up unless you are genuinely concerned about your personal health during the process. With that said…

I wish luck to anyone who wants to try this past week’s ‘diet plan’ for themselves, and please feel free to comment with any information or tips or suggestions for future post ideas! See you next time…

♥

Avoiding the Dreaded ‘D-Word’

You all know what I’m going to say. I know that deep down you really do know. You just don’t want to admit it. It’s a taboo word in today’s healthy lifestyle circles, but it still cannot be avoided. When used correctly, the word isn’t so scary. But, either way…

Say it with me, now:

DIET!

*insert terrified horror movie type scream here*

Yup. The dreaded ‘D-word’ is indeed DIET!

Now, ‘diet’ doesn’t have to be a bad word. As much as I hate using the word, it is sometimes the only way to get people to understand why I am following a strict(ish) plan with Noom, and why I am constantly telling myself and others that I am not allowing myself to divulge in certain foods when I know I’m feeling extremely weak, etc. Sometimes, telling people I’m ‘on a diet’ just helps them to understand more about what I am doing and going through, vs ‘I’m in the middle of a healthy lifestyle change.’ Life is too short to complicate things and try to explain situations to people who will just smile and nod at you, pretending they have the slightest clue regarding what you’re talking about. Less painful for all involved, in my opinion.

But this post isn’t about me being on a diet, or having joined Noom (which I mentioned in a previous post this year), but it’s about the fact that no matter what I do, don’t do, try to do, etc., I still get slapped in the face with diet and weight loss tricks that tend to make me more intrigued than annoyed, some days.

So, since it has been a long time since I have done anything new for a Try It/Test It series, I thought I would come up with some things to run at head first and try for the benefit of YOU, the readers, the followers, and generally curious to see if I succeed or fail in my crazy endeavors.

Weight Loss Item #1: Detox Tea

While bored out of my mind earlier in the month, I decided to shop around on Wish.com and see if anything peaked my interest. I found a few things I figured could be fun to share with the kids, a couple of birthday ideas for my soon-to-be 12yo daughter, and a couple of weight loss items, the first of which being this Tea Cleanse. Because I was, of course, skeptical, and reviews were fairly promising to read, I went with the lowest price point option and time length, 10 days. The package is simple, stating you can “shed up to 10 pounds a week, boost your metabolism and improve health,” but did not come with instructions. However, based on my being a regular tea drinker, I figure I can use the most typical water temp and brew time for something like this. Those missing instructions also leave me having to figure out when to drink it. Should I have it first thing in the morning, before eating anything? With my lunch or dinner? Maybe before bed? I have settled on making sure that I have this tea at night, before bed, as the last thing that I have for the day. The concept of anything that is supposed to work through your system and detox your body makes the most sense to have it before bed, giving it time to work without anything else getting in the way, other than maybe having to get up to pee in the middle of the night.

Weight Loss Item #2: Diet Patches

My second wish.com find for diet tricks are these weight loss patches. I honestly have more skepticism with these than the tea, strictly for the fact that at least I know that tea tends to have some serious health benefits and some teas have been known to help you lose weight. But a patch? I mean really, talk about a Meet the Robinsons ‘caffeine patch’ moment with these things. Can they really do whatever it is they are supposed to do? Reviews were mixed. Most that I read were just responding that they got the item and were excited to try it. A few others stated this was their second time purchasing, or that they liked it and would buy it again. But no one really said if they really worked, or if they used them with a moderate diet and exercise plan, or with not doing anything different. There really was only one way for me to know if they would be remotely beneficial for me, personally, and that was to order them to try them for myself. These little suckers came without any special packaging, no instructions for use, and left me laughing at the concept of wondering where the heck I was supposed to stick them to. But after some research on “Chinese diet patches” I found that they are not only a legit item, but that the instructions were all pretty much the same: Wear them for no longer than 8-12 hours (overnight being best), to use a warm compress on the area before you apply the patch, and to use a moisturizer on the area you will apply it to, if you have sensitive skin. Simple enough.

Weight Loss Item #3: Forskolin

For the final item I found during this mini shopping spree, I really only grabbed up because when I have seen these supplements elsewhere, they are upwards of $20.00 for roughly a month’s supply. Reading up on Forskolin earlier this year, it is supposed to help aid with a hormone that the female body has a hard time creating after things like childbirth and reaching a certain age, or some weird concept like that. Studies I am seeing, however, all seem to be using men as the test subject, and we all know that men and women have completely different luck when it comes to weight loss! Nothing is set in stone and there is just not enough research on the supplement as a weight loss aid to really know if it’s legit or not, but I figure it can’t hurt to try it, right? I had ordered a bottle when I saw it on Amazon, and cringed the whole time I put it in my cart and checked out, knowing I was about to pay twenty bucks for something that may make me sick to my stomach, or at the very least, not be worth taking. Admittedly, I had a hard time remembering to take this stuff once it did show up, and kept telling myself I’ll order more and start fresh and actually track my progress, etc., but I never did. Shopping on Wish, however, I found this stuff much less expensive and decided that $9-$11 was much better a risk than $20, so threw it in my cart. What showed up was a pleasant surprise, because I didn’t expect to see the name brand of one that I had actually done research on months earlier when I found out about this stuff.

The Plan

With three new things to try and the rest of summer ahead of me, filled with things going on that will mean I cannot avoid certain foods, and won’t always be home to take what I need to take when it says to take it, I am going to work with a basic plan to start.

Week 1: July 29 – August 4

I am going to dive head first into another no-carb week. I have done it before and as much as I hate giving up all carbs as a whole, I am going to push myself to actually make it through 7 full days. Last time I stopped after 5, figuring I had gone long enough and needed to allow myself a couple of days to not be so cranky with everyone.

On top of no carbs for the week, I will be coupling it with the detox tea and the Forskolin. The tea being a 10-day cycle for the package I ordered, I will be starting the tea tonight (the night before) and letting it run its course past the 4th. The Forskolin, I will also keep using into the following weeks, to use the full supply in the bottle. (To note, I will be using the brand new bottle pictured above, not finishing the one I had previously ordered, just for the sake of control.)

Week 2: August 5 – 11

The plan here is a little less organized at this time, but this will be the week I start using the diet patches. I currently have set aside the idea to try Intermittent Fasting. I have been wanting to try it, and I think it could be seriously beneficial for me. However, this is the week of Unity and my family will be going to see Skillet on that Thursday night. This could turn into a slight disaster depending on when I decide my eating window will be, and I am going to figure that into my plan. You just can’t go to Unity and completely pass up cotton candy and an elephant ear, and let’s not forget butterfly fries! (I can feel my stomach churning at just the thought of all those greasy things, though.)

I am not going to use Intermittent Fasting as ‘diet plan’ to blog about in the sense that I am with the other items. I have been wanting to try it for quite a while and pairing it with my Noom program, along with regular exercise, I am hoping it works well for me in a way to learn to stop eating right up until bedtime and not feel gross when I wake up in the morning if I did or didn’t eat right before I went to sleep. I will post about my experience, but I am not using it as a ‘trick’ for this Try It/Test It series.

For now, I am only going to talk about the first two weeks just to fill you all in. My goal is to be able to blog about the experiences, what worked, what didn’t, and keep track of my weight at the start and finish. Oh, maybe I’ll dig out the tape measure and track my size, too, but really… Probably not!

♥

Exciting Things!

Very few people, aside from my immediate family members, have known my struggle with weight loss over the past 5 years. I had been a Weight Watchers member for a second time, and had been making good progress for a year. Then my doctor put me on an anti-depressant that was desperately needed. Well, wouldn’t you know it, I happen to be one of the 1% who, when on that particular medication, experienced massive weight gain. We’re talking going from 200lbs to 235lbs in two months time. Needless to say, I canceled my Weight Watchers program because no matter how hard I tried, how to the plan I stuck, how much I moved, the scale kept going up.

I was officially heavier than when I was pregnant with either of my kids.

As much as it sucked to be that heavy, I never looked my weight. In the past year, no one would have guessed I was 115lbs heavier than my wedding day, just two months ago. (I was 130lbs when I got hitched in 2005!)

I decided after Christmas to look deeper into the cost of signing up for Noom and was able to join at a discounted rate.

This has been the best thing I could have done in the past few years, not only for my physical health, but my overall mental well being!

I have been using Noom for 6.5 weeks now and have lost and kept off 11 total pounds. I am, for the most part, eating better, moving more, doing yoga (of all things!) and just generally being a happier person.

Part of the Noom program is to reward or treat yourself. Tangible rewards are something I started setting aside a list for and one of those rewards I signed up for in January and got my first box just Monday of this week: Darn Good Yarn’s $10 Mystery Yarn Subscription. For ten bucks, I wound up with a small box of stuff that just makes me crazy happy: Crochet materials! WOOHOO!

The rainbow skein of yarn and the needles and hook set were the packaged deal, and also included a pattern to knit and one to crochet. The red and grey skein was the $5 mystery item that I added to my order. I am really loving how both skiens feel and the colors!

To fully get into this semi-review of the subscrition box, I felt I needed to actually use the yarn and pattern included, so broke out the crochet hook and got to work that night.

Finishing it up the next day (and finally starting this post that seems to be taking me ages to complete), I learned a few things about hand dyed silk yarns and was reminded of why I stopped using wooden hooks.

The colors in the rainbow skein are gorgeous! However, my yellowish dyed fingertips, nails, and hands would state that using this kind of thing regularly will require stronger soap and some serious lotion for all the hand washing needed after. The hook, while very wonderfully colored, is not going to be my first choice for use with this kind of yarn again. It did not slide as easily as I would have preferred and my new wooden hook is now chipped and worn on the very tip from just one short project.

Overall, would I get it again? Of course! If anything a single skein of yarn every month that could cost $30 or more depending on the type of material will be worth it. Besides, it will mean me having a new collection of yarns to work with an love on! (I can already see my Christmas gift project list growing in my mind…)

For more information on Noom and Darn Good Yarn, I’m including the links below.

I hope you can get as much enjoyment out of these two things as I am gaining in my life!

♥

Noom

Darn Good Yarn

Something New: Part 1 Follow Up

It has taken me forever to write this post and not erase it again and again.

Why?

Well, because making this Cloud Bread may have sounded like a great idea at the time, but everyone in the house liked it except for the person I was making it for: ME!

Needless to say, I did not make it again. In fact, I am not sure if I still want to try the other recipes I found for this type of item or not, anymore.

The concept is great, low- to no-carb bread type item that can substitute normal bread. However, I couldn’t get over the taste of EGG and how that is not really what I wanted to taste when thinking of eating bread.

So, I will stick to just lowering my carb intake by not eating as much bread, but stop considering denying myself breads and bready things altogether.

I figure I can do this the ‘easy way’ or I can continue to enjoy things that taste good and not feel like I am starving for the sake of the ‘easy way!’

Maybe I will find something to try again that I will like better, but for now. I find cloud bread to be a bust in my house and will just continue to spend the rest of my 2018 avoiding the leftover Halloween candy and from eating all the cakes and pies and such that will come along with the upcoming holiday feasts!

♥

Something New: Part 2 (and Part 2 Follow-Up!)

It seems that I am starting off these posts with recipes I have found and want to try. Where Part 1 was planned out for trying to make Cloud Bread for the first time, I have put that follow up post on hold. Why? Well, I found multiple recipes that I wanted to use it with, one of which was my biggest pastry weakness ever and well, I figured that follow-up post needed to include all the ways I found to try it. So that one will take a bit longer to post about.

Part 2 is also a recipe, but as a comparison to a specific recipe that I grew up with: My grandmother’s lasagna!

While searching for general dinner ideas on Pinterest (because I always look for new ideas there, and why not, right?), I came across what was being called “Grandmother[‘s] Best Lasagna in the Whole World.”

The best in the whole world? Really? I mean, of course, I had to pin it to try sometime and so why not try it out and compare it to my own grandmother’s recipe, the one I grew up on!

Comparing the recipes, they aren’t that different. There were just a few bits here and there, that could easily be modified from my grandma’s recipe to create the one I found on Pinterest. Simple things like using different meats and cheeses, down to adding certain herbs or spices. Admittedly, the only reason I wanted to compare the two is that they both had one major ingredient similarity: cottage cheese. Mostly, traditional lasagna recipes use ricotta, but where it used to not be as easy to find in a local grocery store, and then horribly expensive when you could find it, cottage cheese was an easy replacement, and became the ‘norm’ for specific dishes, like this. And as much as I loved my grandma’s lasagna when I was a kid, as I grew up and learned the difference between ‘real Italian’ and ‘makeshift Italian’, I went through a refusal to take shortcuts for traditional style dishes (from any country, actually). I stopped using the cottage cheese that my grandmother’s recipe called for and, since the price wasn’t all that different anyway, starting using ricotta.

***This is my moment to state, for the record, that ricotta is delicious but also rather dry by comparison to the cottage cheese, and that I liked this recipe so much that I will probably just stick to using cottage cheese again, from now on.***

So here are the differences:

• ground beef and Italian sausage vs just ground beef
• yellow onion cooked with the meat vs no onion
• red pepper flakes mixed with the sauce vs no red pepper flakes
• oregano and garlic mixed into the sauce vs parsley and no garlic
• mozzarella and Swiss cheeses on top vs mozzarella and Parmesan

Now, I did not use the red pepper flakes, mainly for my children’s sake, and if it weren’t for them, I would have purchased hot Italian sausage instead of mild. The mild, however, did have quite a bit of a bite to it, so I will be happy using that again. Also, I couldn’t find shredded Swiss cheese on its own, so I compromised with what I did find; a mix of Swiss and Gruyere. I also used less of the Swiss than the recipe called for, and used more mozzarella, too. (There’s never anything wrong with more cheese, am I right?)

Oh, and my son, the pickiest eater in the house, did ask me to please not add the onion next time I make this, so I will save him a bit and likely not bother with the onion, just to see if he notices it isn’t in there or not.

In conclusion, this new recipe may not be one I will consider the ‘best in the whole world’, but it is pretty dang good and will become my new standard lasagna recipe. Or at least until I find one I like better than this one. And as it is so similar to my grandmother’s I may even just use hers and switch it up a bit instead. Different meat choices and cheeses really can change the overall flavor of the dish, and as much of a pain cooking lasagna can seem like, it’s worth the time put into assembling this dish. Trust me! If my kids like it, it’s worth giving it a shot!

Here is the recipe I found and followed.

Please comment and let me know if you have a recipe that you love, whether it’s lasagna or not, and think it’s the best one out there! I’d love to try and it and compare it to what I’ve been making in my adulthood or what I grew up having!

I love, love, love trying new recipes!

♥

Something New: Part 1

I am making some changes to my ‘Try It, Test It, Blog It’ bits for this blog. It will be called Something New and each new post will be a new ‘part’, with any follow up posts being marked as such. As time goes on, I hope that this gives me a more solid space to keep these kinds of posts in, as well as the accountability to follow up on each new thing I want to try, test, make, challenge myself with, etc.

Sound good to you?

I sure hope so! lol

Honestly, you see so much stuff posted on the internet that is called ‘the best’ or ‘easiest’ when discussing weight loss and recipes, DIY projects and crafts, that I always wondered if ordinary folks, like myself, had tried any of them or not.

So again, I am going to be that ‘ordinary’ person willing to try and test things out on and for myself and my family in order to hopefully let you readers in on the secrets of it they are worth your time or not.

Sound better, yet?

I know that this is a redundant post to some of you, especially if you’ve been following me from the start and been interested in those posts I used to do. I apologize for that. I am also not that sorry, because sometimes we all need a little reminder as to what we started following a blog for in the first place!

And the best part is…

I need your help!

Seriously, if you have a recipe, weight loss trick or idea, craft idea, or DIY that you would like me to consider doing, LET ME KNOW!

I am willing to do just about anything (as long as it is financially possible), and all you need to do is suggest something in the comments so that I can research it and add it to my list.

I’m thank you all now, for your ideas and suggestions, because I just know you’re going to all come up with something for me to check out and post about!

Soooooo EXCITED!!!

Now… Onto the good stuff:

First item is going to be making Cloud Bread.

It’s all over the internet and Pinterest has a bazillion recipes to try. It’s supposed to be one of the best low carb ‘bread’ options without having to consume actual bread, and since bread is one of my biggest weaknesses in the food world….I figure it’s worth a shot to try!

So here I am, stating what I will be doing for the first post. I have my ingredients and a recipe (I’ll be making this one here), and a craving for bread that I must give in to.

Can’t wait to fill you all in on how it turns out!

♥

My ‘New’ Way to be Organized

Back in April, I started my first Bullet Journal.

I spent months searching layouts and finding exactly what I wanted to use for materials. I finally landed on something a bit more expensive for the journal (a Leuchtturm1917) and picked up a pack of fine tip Sharpie Pens.

It was time to dig out my colored pencils and Washi Tapes, a ruler, and set to work.

I have so far only run onto one major issue with my BuJo:

KEEPING IT UPDATED!

Really, I just suck at that sort of thing and as much as I hoped I would stay on track with it, I found myself slacking off. It got really bad while my daughter and I were in Florida, visiting my mom. I just got out of my routine and by the time we were back home, I had stopped even getting it out and marking off my goals.

But this is a new month, and I have determination to follow through with my journaling and using it to be more organized throughout the year.

Let’s start with the most important layouts for August…

BuJo Month-at-a-Glance/Goals/To-Do

BuJo Daily To-Do & Task Lists

My ‘month-at-a-glance’ spread butts up with my monthly to-do and goal lists. I have found this to be the best layout for me, so far, even though I have found others I would like to use. I just keep returning to my simple layout.

The daily layout, however, I have now changed up twice, giving me three different views since April. I may not keep this one, although there is a bit more freedom and less confinement with an open layout like this one. I seem to have a bad eye for placement first few tries, however, so maybe more structure really is better.

The next pages are not so much faves, but ways to keep myself accountable. Back in April, I decided I needed not just a habit tracker, but a way to track the things I don’t want to do, as well. In May, I combined them into one page and by June I had added a mood tracker as well. (It was scoops of ice cream.)

July had me use a different habit tracker layout, but in the end I did not like my choice of mini trackers and so went back to my full triple tracker for August.

BuJo Habit & Mood Tracker

I have followed that up with a step tracker for the month.

As I have and wear my FitBit every day, it may seem odd to some to have a step tracker, but it helps me to see just how much or how little I have moved around throughout the month. It gives me time to adjust my daily routine, if need be.

BuJo Step Tracker

This next spread is just one of two, and I have not quite finished it, yet. (I need to stock back up on Post-It Notes, first…)

My minions are insistent that they take a sack lunch with them to school every day, this year. I said we could try that and then my anxiety inched upward as I thought about it being one more thing to remember to take care off every day. Then I saw a photo of this great layout idea for meal planning and thought I could totally do something like it for school lunches and snacks! (Totally got way too excited about it, too.) The hope is that this layout (and yes, I did one similar for meal planning,) will help remind me of what the kids would like as well as prep ahead snacks and sides so they can pack their own lunch sacks before school.

I really am seriously excited about this spread!

BuJo School Meal/Snack Prep/Plan

I am going to sneak in my debt worksheet here for you to see, as well.

BuJo Debt Snowball Tracker

It is such a simple layout that it doesn’t need much explanation. We (my husband and I) have three loans, two of which are student loans we have been basically been paying on since we got married 13 years ago. We have had a couple of car loans during that time, as well, and this is how I am going to track the snowball effect of getting rid of this debt a bit quicker.

This whole BuJo thing really is a great way to keep track of so much going on in my life that I am more than glad that I started it this year.

I have more than these few pages for August and the debt payoff tracker, obviously, but I don’t need to show you guys all the pages in the whole book. That would be a crazy amount of photos!

I will, however, share two more important pages for every Bullet Journal: The Index and the Key!

When you start putting year long or multi-month pages in your journal it is important to remember where they are. The easiest way to find them is an index. And having a key can help you keep things consistent across the whole journal and keep your brain on the same page with tasks and suck from month to month to month.

BuJo Index

BuJo Key

 

I have blank pages and things I still want to add in between months and such, but I don’t push myself to get it all added at once. I like to browse the net for page and spread ideas. There are so many people posting about their Bullet Journal experience that you can find all sorts of pages to get inspiration from! I scan through Pinterest at least once a week for new ideas and once in a while I find something new that stands out so much that I just have to use it.

I will gladly answer questions or offer more photos of my pages to anyone who is interested in a specific page or section from my index. Just leave me a comment and I will gladly respond with what I have!

♥

Walking in Place Can Take You Far

Earlier this week I posted about challenging myself to do a few things. Mostly this included taking new supplements on their promise of weight loss, as well as adding coconut oil to my daily diet, and moving more. My issue with moving more, this time of year, has always been that it tends to be rather windy and cold outside. Also, there can be a possibility of snow or ice, so the idea of walking outside really puts me off the idea.

I can also say that my house isn’t really made for working out.

Jumping jacks make everything shake and wobble, the floors creak just walking up and down the stairs, and where I tend to jump at the chance to do Zumba when the house is empty (more space when no one is around), there really is just not that much room to make it all happen easily.

Now, in that previous post I mentioned I would likely pull out the Wii and get some steps in with the Wii Fit Balance Board, but would also do some videos on YouTube from the Leslie Sansone’s Walk at Home channel.

So as the weather is constantly going from high to low and continues to tease me with promises of spring and sunshine, I will continue to go through these videos.

In the past I have done more than just this first one I am mentioning here, but my current go-to is the 1 Mile Happy Walk, which is roughly 15 minutes long. It’s quick, gets your heart rate going, and my kids love it, too.

The best part about doing these videos is that where I do not have that much space in my living room, I have just enough space to continue to keep moving along with the videos and make adjustments where need be.

I’ve already completed my walk for today, and hope that next week I will be feeling up to adding a mile by doing one of her 2 mile videos instead of just the 1 mile. I also noticed that she has a 5 minute walk added recently, so I am looking forward to trying that one out soon, too!

Are you ready to walk with me?

Check these videos out and make them work for you, too!

♥

Time to Do Something Again

It has been quite some time (again) since I have posted anything, and where I don’t consider this blog to be only a ‘Here, let me try this and tell you about it!’ sort of blog, I do continue to search for things to try or to attempt to debunk, as it gives me a purpose for writing another post.

This only works, however, when I am not busy with other things in my crazy life, and well, honestly, when my household is actually healthy. Three sick family members in a single house hold, at the same time, can really be a hindrance on your normal daily routine. But now that we’re all healthy, and I’m not feeling near as lazy after two weeks of pretty much sleeping all day, I think I’m finally ready to make good on some of the things I have been looking at trying.

From here on out, I will discuss four new challenges that I have decided to set for myself, and, more importantly, the three main things I have found while web surfing and perusing Pinterest that are supposed to help with weight loss. (Note: Nothing in my research of these three main items is claiming that they cannot all be taken/done at the same time. However, I will be making sure to keep an eye on any major health changes with my personal being, in order to decide whether to continue with all three at once, or cut them out completely.)

Item #1: L-Carnitine

Sometime in 2016, I came across a pinned blog article about how L-Carnitine can be used as a weight loss supplement. Now, of course I pinned this to my personal board of things to try, test, and blog about, because I apparently rather enjoy putting my body through a plethora of weight loss techniques and ideas that usually do nothing more than make me have to add something new to my day-to-day actions. Seeing as I can rarely remember to take my vitamins every day, adding more supplements is not usually something I jump at the chance to try. And that includes ones that tout weight loss help.

But this one seems to be fairly legit. The article I read here was rather informative about the number of uses and benefits of taking carnitine. I highly suggest reading the full article yourself to find out more, if you are indeed interested, as my main focus here is on the supplement dosing specifically for weight loss.

According to this article, for weight loss you should be ingesting 2 to 4 grams of L-Carnitine per day. The bottle I picked up is of 500mg capsules and I will be doing this with the lowest dose of 2g, so will be taking a total of 4 capsules every day. You should be able to pick up a bottle of L-Carnitine wherever you can purchase vitamins and other daily supplements, however, I did notice not every brand at the store I shop, carried this particular item. That said, you can always shop online!

Item #2: Turmeric

Turmeric is another one of those items I was seeing being pinned but never really bothered to look much into. I was seeing it as something being added to other items to make a drink that you should have at night before bed, usually stating it was some sort of miracle item that would melt belly fat overnight. I rolled my eyes at a few of these, pinned one, and moved on.

Lately, however, I was wondering more about turmeric as a whole, and tonight decided to look online a bit more deeply into this item. What I found here is pretty well informative and actually rather interesting information. I would highly suggest reading up on turmeric and its uses and benefits whenever you get a chance, because it could very well indeed be something you want to consider for other things than just weight loss.

The mentioned site that I found when searching, suggested 500mg of a turmeric with curcumin supplement, taken three times a day for weight loss. I will mention, the article did state that turmeric is best if taken in powder form, preferable organic, to get the most out of this product. For me, however, it was easier to find the capsules with the curcumin, and also in this form, something you should be able to purchase wherever you pick up your vitamins and other supplements.

Item #3: Coconut Oil & Honey

Okay this one doesn’t sound new, does it? I think I have mentioned coconut oil a few times before, especially when it comes to putting it in your coffee. And the benefits of honey, especially local raw honey, are something I will stand by as being 100% why I hardly suffered at all from seasonal allergies this past year.

This particular pin I found, linked to an article that gave a recipe for a sort of coffee creamer, if you will, that is basically made from coconut oil and honey, with a little bit of cinnamon added in for taste.

You are supposed to add 1 to 2 teaspoons to your morning cup of coffee, and it is supposed to jump start your metabolism. With all that I have been reading on coconut oil over the past couple of years and what a great benefit it is to your daily health, and how adding it to your diet can indeed help reduce your weight, I think this is something I can surely do on a daily basis.

Item #4: Exercise!

I have been reading more and more that excessive exercise can actually be more harmful than helpful to your body. The harder, more jarring the workout, the more strain and possible injury you could be putting your body through. That viewpoint makes a lot of sense, at least to me, and where I will stand by the fact that movement is beneficial to a person’s health, overdoing it is not something anyone should make it a point of doing, even if they do not know they could be doing just that. I know, I know! That does not really make sense. Yet maybe it does?

As I have done challenges in the past that are wrapped around acts of exercise that target certain parts of the body, this one I am giving myself is supposed to just benefit the body as a whole. And, it’s something simple and something I tend to do on a regular basis, anyway.

What is this challenge?

Walking!

My goal, while working on the first 3 items during this month, I am going to add walking or stepping to my daily routine.

Stepping for 30 minutes via the Wii allows me to read at the same time, so I am usually jumping at the chance to finish another book while getting to workout at the same time.

My other option for walking is this YouTube channel I was told about while doing Weight Watchers a few years ago, Leslie Sansone’s Walk at Home. These videos are some of the most energetic and un-annoyingly perky and quick ways to fit in a good mile or three worth of walking, into your day. There is a line of DVDs of hers as well, and I do have a couple that I picked up for a couple of bucks at a yard sale last year, but I do prefer the number of options you can choose from on her YouTube channel.

With any luck, maybe by the end of the month I will be able to complete her three mile video(s) without wanting to quit before I have made it two miles in!

Final Thoughts:

I have managed to give myself a mega list of challenges to get through over the next couple of weeks, at least. I would like to say that I will do all four of these from now until the end of March, however, I cannot be sure that I will be able to make that happen. Doing the math, I know I will need to buy more of the supplements after two weeks, if I do choose to continue this throughout the month. I may even need to pick up more honey for more of the coffee creamer, and I know after a few days I will need to go buy more coffee.

I will continue to weigh myself on Sunday mornings, as I have been trying to do this year, and I will be sure to update via Facebook and/or Instagram. I’d say I would update via Twitter, but I’m lucky to remember to do much more than share my Instagram posts to Twitter on a regular basis. Either way, I will update as the month goes on and of course share results after I have finished with everything.

If anyone cares to try these items for themselves, I wish you luck in your venture with it!

♥

Let’s Keep it Up!

Maybe I should have used ‘off’ instead of ‘up, in my post title. Hmmm…

Simple and quick post here. Basically I wanted to inform you readers on the whole results from the last post, and wanted to do so before I forgot to.

Here goes nothing…

Wednesday, January 18th, I did that wannabe juice/water fast thing. It was only for one day, and I figured that since I had done 30 hours at a time for a good cause, I could handle a full day of liquids only, with my health being the main reason for trying. I say it’s a ‘wannabe’ sort of fast because it really was not what a full on juice fast is, but it had a good base of the same components to one. (Maybe one day I’ll get that brand new juicer that I cannot sell, out of my basement and do a week of actual juicing and do a real juice fast…)

So I started the day off wanting to weigh myself and measure around my tummy. That sounds odd to some, but remember how I stated that that ‘diet plan’ promised a flat stomach in 24 hours? Makes sense, now, doesn’t it…

I won’t give full details on my weight and inches here, as I will leave that to another post another day, and will just carry on. I followed the recipe list, which was seriously lacking in instruction. I chose to mix each item at 1:1 ratio so that I was drinking the full glass of water as well as drinking a full glass of juice, which would better provide my body with some of the nutrients I was missing out on by fasting, in the first place. If I choose to do this again, I will seriously rethink how I go about ingesting a full glass of water mixed with lemon juice, because a full glass of lemon juice, even diluted with an equal amount of water, was so tart, it took me over an hour to drink it. And I had to drink two of that mix by the time the day was over!

That was really the only thing I didn’t like about the whole ordeal, by the way.

Anywho…

The results? I lost 2.4 pounds and lost 1 inch off my tummy.

Would I recommend this plan to others? Certainly!

In all honesty, it isn’t going to make you have a flat stomach instantly (especially if you have an almost 8 year post baby belly like me! lol), but it can help you jump start a diet plan. If you do decide to try this the way that I did, let me know! I’m curious what your results would be. I have already decided that I will do this again, but maybe once a month. I would shoot for once every other week, but after seeing how much a bottle of actual lemon juice costs (not the concentrated stuff), it’s kind of off-putting to want to do this more than once a month. (It was $5.00 for the lemon juice I bought, and the only straight carrot juice I found was $6.00 so this isn’t something you can do on the cheap unless you are juicing with a machine vs buying juice at the store.) You will also want to makes sure that what juices you are using are not from concentrate. I did not think to check the grapefruit juice that I already had at home before picking up the other things I needed to pull this off, or I would have seen it was not what I was wanting for this. You are getting a more natural product by using not from concentrate products. They might not be as shelf stable as others, but I guess that’s incentive to drink more juice!

So that’s the gist of it, I guess.

I had results, I feel good today, not even as hungry as I thought I might feel. I have not reached for a snack since I had breakfast and my coffee, and I am not even considering what to make for lunch yet. All in all, I would call this one a success for a good way to kick start your healthier lifestyle, or to at least fit into that dress or outfit that you’re dying to get into in two days for some event.

Next on the list: Do not gain back all the weight I just lost!

Hehe

♥