On Tuesdays, we eat junk and watch tv!

Well, the past two days have been a rough struggle for me. And that's more of an understatement. It's been more than hard. It's been more than rough. This morning I woke up and just wasn't willing to face the day. Literally....I did NOT want to wake up because I knew my day consisted of exercising my overly sore body AND eating healthy food. Today was particularly hard because Tuesday nights are normally "Me" nights! Two of my favorite shows come on. Dance Moms and Pretty Little Liars. Other times during the year it's 19 Kids and Counting. Anyways....for the past couple of months Tuesday nights have been the nights I put the boys to bed early, make some nice unhealthy meal and gorge my face while watching shows. I loved those nights. They made me feel happy and content. Especially when so many of my nights are lonely. Theo works a lot of nights and I have no girlfriends that wanna come over at night and just chill with me. So they were just "feel good nights" Well, this is the very first Tuesday I can't do that. :( It's honestly heartbreaking. That may sound silly to some of you reading this, but it really does break my heart. There are certain things that we all do that provides us a release. Some run. Some eat. Some knit. I mean, the list is endless. But once you find something you just love doing, it's hard to break the habit. So today is not such a good day for me. I think considering all of this...I've maintained a pretty "happy" attitude. LOL! I've snapped more than necessary at the boys though. I just keep praying to God to keep giving me the strength. HE's the only reason I've made it thus far. So I know HE can keep me going. So, maybe instead of "On Tuesdays....we eat junk food and watch TV!" maybe I'll adopt a new habit "On Wednesday, we wear pink!" :) For those of you who don't know...the latter is a quote from Mean Girls! :)

Too Loose Weight or Enjoy Food?

I really feel like I'm going to have a breakdown. I'm seriously on the verge of tears. So I thought...."Hey! Probably better to blog then run out to McDonald's and grab that Big Mac and Fries you can't seem to get out of your head. Or that Chinese Food you've been wanting for a month!" So, I'm going to voice my frustrations here. All week (since the 1st of August) I've eaten 100% healthy. No splurges. Not many sweets. If I did have something sweet it was a Fit and Active low fat/no sugar type thing. Sugar has never been my problem though. CARBS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Lots and lots of salty carbs!!!!!!!! I have a headache right now. I'm pretty sure it's from stressing out over not being satisfied enough over what I eat. It all comes down to, I'm not happy eating healthy. Which is why I'm as fat as I am. I say that with all honesty. I truly 100% admit I have a junk food addiction and I think today is when it's really hitting me hard. There is NO WAY in heck any salad will be delicious enough as a Big Mac. NO WAY! NO way ever! I know some people enjoy fruits and veggies and that's amazing for them! That's what satisfies them. But that's not what satisfies me.I love sitting down to a meal and consuming it and feeling "Ahhhhhhhhhhh....that was SOOOOO yummy!" I don't feel that way after eating a salad with grilled chicken bits. It's not my thing. I know eventually I'll be able to eat things like that (occasionally....I'm not trying to eat them regularly ever again)but for now....I just can't. It'll be one whole week tomorrow. Granted I've seen the results I feel satisfied and VERY happy with. I am currently sitting wearing ANOTHER pair of underwear that was too small. And that's a GREAT feeling. But I'd like to feel great in what I'm eating too. All those people who talk about the great highs they come off of after a great work-out or healthy meal....yeah. Not for me. I only feel high enough when I loose weight or see changes in my body. And since that doesn't happen every day..it's VERY hard to stay focused and dedicated and not feel like you're going to break down from lack of junk-food. Truth is...I wish there was some magical cure, so I wouldn't have to worry about any of this. But the reality is, it doesn't exist. Some people can be skinny all their lives and eat whatever they want. That's not the body God's given me. I need to do the best I can for the body I have. So while I'll probably STILL cry.....I need to not cave today. I need to hold out a little bit longer. Plus I'm having a party this Friday and I'll be preparing snacks for everyone...so I'll probably indulge a little bit then. So I really can't afford to break this diet right now. God can give me the strength to get through this. I just have to trust. Oh boy. That's SOOOOOOOOOOO much easier said than done.

Post 80!

So my blog dashboard has informed me that this is my 80th post. How cool is that? I didn't realize I had blogged that much. Hopefully I can add even more and have more than 100 posts. That'd be awesome! In this 80th post today, I'd like to talk about food. My great love for food. I'm on a more strict diet this month. I started on the first and am hoping to drop an incredible amount of weight this month. I'm trying to barely eat over 1,000 calories a day. Trying to still work out like a mad woman. Just trying...really really REALLY hard to drop some weight. 5lbs is NOT enough in my book. Which brings me back to the main subject. FOOD! I love food. And junky food. In my opinion...there's no way veggies and fruits will ever be as satisfying at a Big Mac and Fries. There's just no way. Which is how I've gotten to be this overweight. I enjoy junky food. Which is okay! It's okay to enjoy junky food. But what's not okay is eating it NON-STOP and allowing yourself to get mega unhealthy. That's the problem. Everything in moderation! So I'm on day 3 of this month and I'm still craving Chinese food BADLY! I was going to have some July 31st before I started my "diet" but the place that I love, was oddly closed for some reason. It was very odd. So I never got it. My plan is to go the whole month of August without eating out, or eating junk. However yesterday we were out at this place called Boogie Babies. It was a last minute thing. We met up with the Greene's. I had no other food choice so I ate a hot dog. Honestly...a hot dog is not that bad. Of course there's no way it's considered healthy...but I could've certainly done worse. Also, I had to grocery shop yesterday because eating was hard. We had no healthy choices. Of course most of that is due to going to Chicago and just not having food left. So I grocery shopped. I bought SOOOO many fruits and veggies. I didn't want to be limited at all. So last night for dinner I made hubby and I a HUGE bowl of salad. I went out of my comfort zone and added cucumbers and red peppers to it. In addition to some green onions. It was mighty tasty. I also bought these Fit and Active grilled chicken bites from Aldi. I just popped a few in the skillet and tossed some in our salad. Viola! I yummy delicious meal! It actually made me full. I didn't know salad's were capable of making me feel full. So that was nice. Basically, I've discovered, eating healthy is SOOOOO much easier when there's food in the house. And good choices! :)

Chica-GO or Chica-STAY?

So, I thought after our trip to Chicago that I would blog about it. Plus I had a special request from my good pal Sherrell! :) I already blogged about my favorite part of the whole trip....but now I fill you in on the trip itself! :) So we left for Chicago, IL on Friday July 27th around 5a.m. I wanted us to leave early because I wanted us to get there early enough to actually do something. LOL So our gps says we should arrive around 9:45a.m. (I believe that's what it said) So we're just driving along. Singing songs, enjoying the car ride. Well it approaches 9:45a.m. and our GPS says we still have a long ways to go. We were SO confused. We figured maybe we put the address in wrong? Maybe the GPS is broken? Hmmmmm? What could it be? After re-checking to make sure our destination was the right address we kinda just sit back in silence. All of a sudden I blurt out "TIME CHANGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" hahahahahaha! Illinois is an 1hr behind Michigan. My husband claims me as brilliant and we continue on our journey. It only took us about 4hrs to get there. Which means we got there around 11a.m. The hotel we stayed in was called the Radisson. Located in Des Plaines, IL. It was 1.5miles from the O'Hare Chicago Airport. I was confused as to why the airport claimed to be in Chicago when we were clearly in Des Plaines...but whatever. So, we check into our hotel early. I was delighted to discover, once we reached our room, that we had a sleep number king size bed!!!!! I had always wanted to try one out! See what all the fuss was about. Well, once we dropped our stuff off, we didn't have much time before packing up the back-pack (filled with diapers, sippy cups, snacks for little kids, extra clothes....etc etc etc.) and heading downstairs to meet the shuttle bus at 11:30a.m. The hotel provided a complimentary shuttle that would leave every half our on the hour and half hour marks. So we rushed to be down in the lobby at 11:30 only to find out the bus had left a little bit early. Oh well. It was nice outside, so we sat outside and waited for the Noon bus. Eventually we made it to the O'Hare Airport where the Blue Line ran on the CTA Metro system. Let me say up front. NOTHING is clear in Chicago. There are no clear instructions on ANYTHING. They just expect you to know where to go. So we arrive at this terminal. I'm paying attention to what door the bus dropped us off at. The main stream of people seem to be flowing off to the right. So we follow. :)Thank goodness for people else we would've stood around in the terminal ALL day! We take an elevator up. I kept looking to figure out what floor we were on but couldn't find a number. There was a HUGE Cubs sign but nothing else. Silly me didn't put two and two together. The floors weren't numbered. They were categorized by Chicago type stuff. Well I didn't end up figuring that out til Theo told me on our way back. Anyways...we take an elevator up to a MAD frenzy at the Metro. Everyone's rushing to get tickets and there are long lines. I felt overwhelmed IMMEDIATELY! This is the moment I then remember, I HATE big crowds. I literally feel like I can't breathe. Here in Michigan everyone's so spread out even though it's a city, you don't get that choked up hussle-bussle city feel. To be honest. Hindsight, we probably should've turned around and gone back to the hotel and just relaxed that day. But of course....then I thought "Oh I can do this!" I stop trying to focus on my suffocating feeling and overwhelmingness. Theo purchases our passes with very little problem. That is after I found an attendant and asked if we had to pay for the boys. Because, there were of course NO postings of who had to pay on the Metro line. Like I said...Chicago just assumes you know things. After the passes are purchased we then take the handicap elevator to the platform. Of course we can't figure out which of the 3 buses to get on...but we figure "eh! This is only 1 line...it has to eventually get us where we wanna go." Well, let me just say. I've ridden a Metro in D.C. (several times) AND the subway in New York (also a decent amount of times) and I knew we could switch over to different color lines to get as close to our end destination as possible. Our end destination that day was The Navy Pier where the USO was located and the Chicago Children's Museum. My husband didn't listen to me that we could switch lines and so, my loving...oh so wonderful husband got us off at a stop TWO MILES from where we needed to be!!!!! TWO MILES!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm not saying 2 miles is too much to walk...BUT...when we're JUST starting our day out?!?! So, Theo keeps telling me "Oh! We're almost there! We're almost there!" Yeah...we never were. I was so frustrated, hungry and tired. Mind you, we hadn't eaten lunch yet. Just had breakfast and snacks in the car. We FINALLY make it to the Navy Pier's USO. Which for those of you who don't know...is basically a place for only Military where you can go and rest. They have like a REALLY nice living room type set up. With TV, magazines, computers, a play area for the kids. A kitchen with a fridge full of free drinks! They also had bowls of chips, crackers and other goodies on every table! I felt like I was in heaven after walking all that way. The only flaw to the USO....they have NO bathroom! So you have to go back out into the crowd and find your way to the public bathroom and stand in line. But once we were at the USO, we were able to snack, re-fuel, change diapers and just BREATHE without being in the MASSIVE crowd. SOOOO nice. The USO might have been my favorite part of Friday. haha! Anyways....after resting there for awhile we then proceed to head to the Children's Museum. Which wasn't far from the USO. It was free for all of us to get in! It was amazing. The first Children's museum Isaiah had ever been to! He LOVED it!!!!! LOVED it! They even had this designated areas for baby's who couldn't walk. It was amazing. A little crowded, but the museum was big enough that you didn't feel suffocated. After that we were all STARVED!!!! So Theo directs us to Giodorno's Famous Chicago Stuffed Pizza. We, of course had to do more walking. OH! Let me take a time out to say, we didn't realize that on the metro, not every stop is handicap accesable. I can't remember when we had to do this, but I know it was Friday, we had to literally carry the double jogging stroller (with both boys in it-Isaiah weighs 40lbs and Collin 20lbs) up a HUUUUUGE flight of stairs! I can't remember exactly where they were or anything...but we did that about 3 times. So add that to my exhaustion list. So back to the pizza place. Theo had talked this place up. He had gone to Chicago for work back in May and had raved about it. Love it. Wanted to take me there. So anyways, when he explained to me this pizza...I had my doubts I would like it. It was stuffed pizza with sauce on top. I'm not a fan of having sauce on TOP of my cheese. LOL Well...needless to say...I was right. I didn't like it. But I did eat two slices which made me feel like I was going to bust a gut. I was SOOOO full. So I'll give them that much. I've NEVER eaten just 2 pieces of pizza and felt so full. LOL That was pretty much the end of day 1. Day 2-Saturday! Saturday was better. We finally learned to figure which stops were handicap! We also got off of a stop that was WAYYYYY closer to where we needed to be. Saturday we went to The Shedd Aquarium. That was NOT as great as I expected. We had to pay $8 for me and that only allowed us to see all different kinds of fish (basic fish) and a few sting rays. No sharks, no whales, no dolphins. Nothing cool! No eels or jelly fish. It was lame and WAY overly crowded. Of course we spent WAY more time standing in line, than we even spent in the aquarium itself. Once we were done there we walked ALLLLLL along the lake. It was so far! We walked about 2miles back to the Navy Pier. We stopped in the USO to catch a breathe and get some refreshments. I love that place! We ended up eating at this AWESOME place called Epic Burger. I'm pretty sure that was the most amazing part of Chicago. Most certainly the best food I ate while I was there!!!! Basically it's all organic. The beef is organic...I'm not a meat person, but that beef tasted SOOOO good. The cheese, all the veggies are grown right there in Illinois! It's soooo awesome! I am completely obsessed. Sadly they're only in Chicago. :( Oh well! I'm glad I got to experience the great taste of burger. Day 3-Sunday! Sunday was short. Mostly because we had to drive back to Michigan! Basically all we did was the Willis Tower. Which used to be the Sears tower. Again we spent WAYYYY more time waiting in line than actually being up in the tower. But it was nice to experience. On the way back to the hotel we simply picked up some Subway. The drive back was a bit more frustrating. We barely left the hotel and hit traffic RIGHT away. Thankfully Theo and I dealt with it by singing fun songs like Haddaway's "What is Love". We also had some fun good conversation. Both of the boys, of course, were passed out so it gave us some quiet time to chat. Overall, our trip was fun! It was a bit rough here and there. But every day got better because we learned how to navigate the city better. I'm glad we had the opportunity to travel and see things like this. Growing up, we didn't get to travel, so it's nice that we can experience it now with our little family! So in the end...should we Chica-GO or Chica-STAY?! I say GO! :)

Today's Blog is brought to you by the number 6 and the letter S

Why the number 6 and letter S you might ask? Well 6 would be the amount of times we road a bus to and from the Blue Line CTA Metro stop. They had a free shuttle bus from our hotel (Radisson in Des Plaines, IL) to the O'Hare Airport where the Blue Line CTA Metro line ran. Of course, when riding the shuttle bus there aren't car seats. So Theo always sat with Isaiah and I would keep Collin. EVERY single time we road that shuttle bus, that cute, cuddly little boy named Collin would curl up onto me and most of the time drift off to sleep. The ride was only about 7min long. So sometimes we just wouldn't be on there long enough for him to fall asleep. But he totally loved cuddling with me. So let's back track here a bit. I can't remember if I've blogged about this before. But when I was pregnant with Collin at times it felt like he was literally grabbing my internal parts and squeezing them to death. I thought I was imagining things. It REALLY hurt sometimes. I mean it just felt like pinching and grabbing. VERY painful. So as soon as he was born, I noticed he HAS to grab EVERYTHING. And when he sleeps, he grabs something soft for comfort! Like for example, his blanky. He grabs it and pulls it to his face and falls asleep. Well on the bus, he would grab my shirt or at one point he grabbed under my arm and was pinching it. He kept pinching and squeezing it. I wanted so badly to say it hurt, but honestly, I felt honored. Honored and loved. Honored that my skin...practically my arm fat, was comfort enough for him. He loves me unconditionally, so a mere arm was enough to soothe him to sleep. Which brings us to the letter of the day. S. S for a sleepy baby! :) Isaiah was never one to cuddle with. EVER! Even now. Isaiah is very much an independent 100% Daddy's boy! I mean, he likes me enough, but just hasn't ever fallen asleep on me or anything. It made me not really feel like a mother. Well God has finally blessed me with a child who makes me feel like a nurturing mother. He loves me just the way I am, and I am enough comfort for him to sleep. In this picture you can see how he has my shirt squeezed in his hand. BEST feeling in the whole world. Thank you God for blessing such as these! :)

Chicago Bound

So for the first time in awhile I'm SO excited to take a little trip! We're going to Chicago, IL! I am SO beyond excited. It's not too far from home and we get to do a whole bunch of free stuff while we're there. Ever since Theo took a work related trip there (back in May) he's wanted to take me there. I've never been! He raved about how amazing it was and he took lots of pictures! Anyways, I didn't have the best week last week. It was just a very odd, overly emotional, not thinking straight kind of week. Theo is stressed with work. So, what better way to distress than to do something fun as a family? So, to Chicago we go! Some of the places we will be visiting will be: -Chicago Children's Museum -The Shedd Aquarium -The Navy Pier

Of course that's a very small list of what we'll be doing. We're going to stay two nights at a hotel near the airport. (WAY cheaper that way) Then we'll metro into downtown where all the fun stuff is! :) I'm pretty excited. I think we'll ALL have fun, and being some where besides home having fun, I think will help us tremendously! So stay tuned for pictures and updates of our trip! :)

Curvy is fat!

So I just had to post this blog. I feel I'm entitled to say what I want because I AM overweight! LOL!!!! So basically, if you don't wanna hear what I have to say or you're going to criticize this.....don't read it! :) So! If you're an overweight girl....how many times have you heard other girls who are overweight say "You're just a curvy girl!" Or "Us big-boned girls have to stick together"? Yeah....I'm sure you've heard it lots of times. Cause I certainly have! I wish people would learn to say what it is. It's FAT! Now, don't get me wrong, there are actual curvy people. For example...when I drop all this weight...I will have curves. HEALTHY one's!!!!! Like a booty, boobs....curves like that! But I'm just getting sick and tired of people using those words to describe me. It's FAT! That's what it is! Plain 'ol F-A-T!!!!! And there is NO such thing as Big Boned! You can be more solid than most people. Or you can just naturally be larger. For example Isaiah Brent was born SO big! That boy is pure solid! But I will hopefully instill on him great eating habits and a healthy active lifestyle so that he won't jump into that fat unhealthy category. I really am just sick and tired of people saying things like that to me. If you wanna be nice...just say "overweight". Curvy and big-boned are just cover-up words for making "Fat" sound nicer. I wish us girls would stop using it. Maybe if we helped tell each other the truth more, we could help keep each other accountable and not be in such unhealthy states! It's like us women calling each other "Bitches" "Hos" things like that. It's actually a nice way of saying "You have a problem and need help! Only I'm gonna make fun of you instead!" It's ridiculous! I wish we as women would have more self esteem and seek the help we need. I've finally gotten motivated to be healthy. I refuse to diet. I'm making a life style change. If I want to eat something junky, I will, I just don't eat as much. Or I finally seem to be able to decide what's worth the calories and what's not. I seem to limit myself SOOOO much better now! And exercising is my best friend now! I love it!!!!! So for us overweight girls, let's stop making excuses and nice cover up words...and let's get on it! Let's get healthy!!!!!!!