Just a quick note!

Hellooo!!

Friday was my birthday: 35 years old! It's a landmark birthday and a WHOLE new start on life! I have never been this confident before in my journey! I am actually really excited!

Been working on a few things! Doing well with this whole "no fast food deal". Working from home has been a BLESSING in SOOO many ways! I have the energy to keep up with the house, AND have discovered that I am actually too lazy to be bothered to GO OUT and GET fast food! lol Evidently, it's an addiction of convenience! Instead, I have been making all kinds of random things I find in the kitchen, just to get me in the habit of cooking from home. So far so good! I could NOT believe how much money was left over in my bank account last week! I was SO happy!!

Tomorrow I am going to look through some cookbooks and find REAAAAALLLY easy recipes that I would like to try. Some of the "meals" I've been cooking have come out GHASTLY! Bobby Flay would be very disappointed in my culinary (lack of) prowess! There have GOT to be some super simple meals I can cook. I am pretty sure ANYTHING will taste GREAT when I rely on the people that CREATED them and not my own devices!

Heading to the store tomorrow: stocking up on produce, proteins, and ingredients for the couple recipes I decide on. I am also going to be going back on Dr. Natura's Colonix. I have a bit left over from a year ago, and will be ordering more in about a week. Check it out. The stuff is amazing...more on that later though.

Here are a pair of sneakers I am saving up to buy!


I wear flip flops ALL the time because my feet are so dang swollen, other shoes hurt or down right just don't fit. These are super wide and supportive. So I am excited to get them!! Walking in flip flops or the ill fitting sneaks I do have is just not an option, my arches are KILLING me!!

I am taking donations though! lol

One good week down, MANY more to go!!

This week has been a good week!! I managed to get my butt to the grocery store and get a chicken! Not the fried kind, mind you, but the "better" kind that goes for a spin in that yummy looking oven before it hits my plate. I seriously could pull up a chair, and sit there in front of that oven, basking in the sultry warmth emanating from the chickeny "Merry-go-round". Who needs a fire place to set a mood. Just slap a HUGE chicken rotisserie in my living room and call it a "night in" for me!! Mmmmm...

ANYWAY! I bought a chicken, lots of veggies, avocado, corn tortillas and had myself LOTS of food for the week. Now that I think about it...HOLY COW!! I haven't had fast food in 5 days!!! I didn't even REALIZE IT!! I seriously just had to go check my bank account to see when the last debit transaction was! YAY ME!!! Well, I guess all I have to do in order to beat the fast food addiction is have a big bag of Avocados on hand!! (I did eat 6 avocado's in the last 5 days. lol) YAY!!

I need to go fill up our big water bottles. I have had almost 0 water. I know, I know... Preparation is the key...CLEARLY!! I will go fill up the bottles tomorrow, I promise!!

Is there anything YA'LL would like me to write about?? Tell me what you think!! :)

I am off for the night! Make it a good one!

Lesson's from Kristin with an I...

One of my biggest heroes has been Biggest Loser 7 contestant Kristin Steede. She has such a sunny and bright attitude! I LOVED watching her transformation, how she always played the game with such integrity through her struggles and triumphs! Her sassy humor and nack for expressing herself had me enthralled each and every Tuesday night!

A couple of weeks ago, Kristin posted a thought provoking story on her blog (www.kristinsteede.com) It was a "write your own ending" of sorts. The evening of her post was the end to one of the hardest days of my life. I had hit rock bottom emotionally, physically, and financially. I haven't been that low in a long time. I am usually a VERY sunny person! Always positive and ready with a smile! But months and months of keeping up that sunny disposition had finally gotten to me, and as I wrote a check for the mortgage, which left $3 in my checking account for the next two weeks, I broke down. No longer able to keep a smile on my face.

I would like to paste here the post she had published, along with my comment I left on her blog that night. It's a defining moment in my life, that has gotten me back on this wagon, and taking the pot holes one bump at a time.

Please read Kristin's blog, it is VERY inspiring!

www.kristinsteede.com

Here is her post:
_______________________________________
JULY 27, 2009

Finish the story…

So imagine it is Sunday night and you are planning for this exciting new adventure. You have thought about it for years, you have finally planned for it and now you are ready to go! Tomorrow you and your closest family and friends are going to get on this wagon and go to a place you have always dreamed of. A place where you fit in. A place where you can be yourself. A place where you know you will be happy. It is a place you really want to be.

Now you are riding on this wagon and you are cruising along. You are happy, you are committed to the long ride, you are obeying the rules of the road. Things are good. All sudden you see something up ahead…what could it be? Oh my, that is your good friend Betty! She started on this trip with you but it appears she has fallen off of her wagon! Being the good friend you are, you stop your wagon, hop off and visit with Betty for a bit. Deep down inside you know that you have to get going. You have to get back on your wagon or you are never going to get to your destination.

There you are, back on your wagon again and suddenly you start hitting some bumps in the road. These bumps are really slowing you down and it is SO FRUSTRATING! In this bumpy stretch of road there are so many people who have fallen off of their wagons. Are you going to let these bumps stop you from getting to your destination or are you going to ride these bumps out until you hit smooth road again? You have to keep going despite how bumpy the road gets or you are never going to get to where you want to be…what do you do?

***This is the point where you take over! Finish the story. Write it down here. If you were riding on your wagon but hit a bumpy road and fell off tell me how your story ends. YOU are the ONLY one who can write your story. (There is a deep message in that sentence) You are the only one who can decide how much time you spend on the side of a bumpy road while all of these other wagons pass you by.

And my comment...

Kristin

said on July 27, 2009 at 10:36 pm:

Wow girl… I know I joked that you should blog about our “boy” Ronnie. But man. I needed this.

I TOTALLY had an emotional and mental breakdown today. My road has been SOOOOO bumpy these last couple months. But I kept on going, with a smile, like I always do. Today, it was as if I hit a pot hole, man hole, or sink hole, SOMETHING huge!

I was supposed to meet my mother at the grocery store so we could shop together, just for some “girl time”. Instead I just sat in her car and wept for almost an hour with her.

Almost 600 lbs am I. It’s starting to feel like the bumps in my road are getting too tough to handle. But I know all I have to do is take the road ONE bump at a time. Looking down the road, it can be OVERWHELMING to see all those bumps in my way. But really, the ONLY bump I need to concentrate on is the bump right in front of me.

Thanks to your post, I am going to go to bed and figure out WHICH bump is at my feet. WHICH bump it is that I need to step over. WHICH bump it is that I get to CONQUER tomorrow!

Love ya Girlie!
Kristin

_______________________________________

I hope you all choose to navigate the bumps and pot holes down your road!! It's the ONLY way we are going to get to where we desire to go!

When I was at Denver Academy, my Senior year of HS, I kept a journal and wrote all kinds of "thought provoking" quotes. lol The one though, that has ALWAYS stuck with me I thought was pretty dang good:

"If you are having trouble moving a mountain, try building a tunnel and going through it!"

Basically, don't keep doing the same thing over and over if it isn't working for you! There is a way out of ANY situation, you just have to be willing to exhaust all the options!

Love and Cheers!

WOO HOO!!! I'm BACK!

Okay!

Thank you for waiting SOOOO patiently! I had to stop posting here for a little bit while the Biggest Loser Peeps checked out my blog. (Thanks Brandon!) Since I am still wanting to be on the show at some point, I have to be very careful with what I talk about. I needed to make sure that my blog was A-Ok with them. Good news! It is!! I can keep posting, I am just not allowed to talk about my progress in the BL casting process, should I enter into it again at some point. :)

So! Things have been going well! Of course some days are better than others. Being away from the blog for so long, I am finding myself back at square one. I HAVE lost weight though! 17lbs to be exact! Sadly I will no longer be able to weigh in, I had to stop going to Weight Watchers because of financial reasons. They were the only scale I could find that went up to my weight. :( I am not too worried. I just need to stick to my goals, and at some point I will get below 450, at which point I can use the scale I have here at home!

I have discovered that Fast Food is an evil, EVIL thing and should be outlawed in America! Money has been NON EXISTENT for the last couple weeks, and fast food hasn't even been an option. I must say, it's been kind of nice. The first few days were MURDER; I actually feel I went through withdrawals. But towards the end, I didn't even miss the crap-tacular food anymore. This is what makes me SOOOO mad about the small binge I went on yesterday and today. I got payed and where was the first place I went to?? McDonald's!! WHAT THE HECK!! Today I ran over to Chic Fillet!! UGH!! Lemme tell you, I FEEL LIKE CRAP!! They say you are what you eat! Go FIGURE!

So I am taking the feeling this cement lump in my stomach is giving me and am using it as my secrete weapon! My secrete weapon in the war on my fast food addiction! I am going first thing in the morning and heading to Sam's and the grocery store!

Here we go again! Daily goals:

125 oz of water a day
NO FAST FOOD

That's it! SOOOO Do-able!! In Jillian's words "I GOT THIS!"
























I will post more tomorrow, I am back to blogging every night so check in for the latest and greatest!! Thank you so much for sticking with me!!!