First Day...of many

Thursday and Friday I started on a new workout plan called C25k (couch to 5k); it's a treadmill workout in an app for your phone. The app is free and I downloaded it to my iPhone (they have other apps as well). It's 8 weeks long, 3 days a week, for about 30 minutes each day. The best part is that you can run your music/playlist through the app and the app will quiet your music in order to give you instructions. So you never have to look down at your phone to check your progress. Since I technically wasn't planning on starting until today, I will restart my program tonight when I hit the gym, instead of continuing from last weeks practices.

I went grocery shopping on Saturday to stock up for a weeks worth of healthy eating. My goal is to get through one week at a time. I'm not a patient person, so monthly goals don't really work for me. I need shorter periods with small successes to help me go the distance. Today is day 1 of 6 and the new week will always begin on Mondays; with Sundays as a free day.

My calorie intake is set at 1500 per day. My goal for water consumption is 1 gallon per day. And my C25k 30 minute gym visit kills about 150. Which isn't a lot, but that's just to get me started. I'm hoping that soon I'll be able to fit in 2 days a week of a muscle building workout.


Here is my menu for the next 6 days:

Breakfast: 301

Green Smoothie-

1/2 cups of fat free milk, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries
1 6oz container of fat free light strawberry yogurt
1/2 a small banana
3 cups of spinach

Snack: 270

Green Apple
2T of creamy peanut butter

Lunch: 379

2  slices of whole wheat toast
6 slices of turkey lunch meat
1 slice of kraft single American cheese

Dinner: 208

3 cups of spinach
1 cup of strawberries
Raspberry Vinaigrette dressing


That leaves me a bit of wiggle room to change things up...like having a chicken caesar salad instead of a plain spinach salad, a plain fruit smoothie or protein smoothie instead of a green one, or a different kind of sandwich instead of turkey.


On a sewing note, I'm slowly putting away at cutting up FQ's for a twin sized bed quilt made from Allison's pattern FOUND HERE.

I packaged up what I thought were my last two swap packages for the year until I found The Covert Robin swap and couldn't resist. Can we say addicted? Yeah, and I thought Taco Bell and Diet Coke were only vices.

Anyway, happy Monday (and President's day) and thanks for sticking with me as I post my process to a healthier lifestyle. My goal is to inspire, whether it be in the sewing room, or in the workout room.

Prioritizing...

So the past few days I've been trying to figure out what's most important in my life...

I have always put my kids and my husband before myself, and then find comfort in my sewing, when I can sew. But the truth is...I'm just burying how I'm really feeling; using my family as a front for not being happy with myself. I've been feeding myself this lie (and peanut m&m's) that as long as I'm able to be creative in some way, I'll be happy.

Enough is enough!! The other day I told my sister in law that I was going to take a hiatus from sewing come April...because that should give me enough time to get some projects done that I need to get done. For some reason I can only focus on one thing at a time...well, it's time to focus on me. I do have a few projects that need getting done, but I can easily manage those on the side.

The most important thing is for me to focus on me, to get healthy, to get happy, to get a life outside of this bubble that I live in (called my super messy house).

Today I visited a blog that I've been a follower of for a long time...I've been so busy I haven't caught up in Google Reader in a couple years...oops. House of Smith's is the cutest DIY blog out there and the writer/owner Shelley Smith has been on a weight loss kick since last year. She has lost 70 lbs. and seems so happy! I want that. Although I could stand to lose a full 65 lbs. I'd be happy with the 45 (or even 30!) that I have gained in 8 years of marriage (this April).

So I'm doing it. This is it. I don't want to lose any readers over this and I don't plan on posting a whole lot to the blog over the next few months but I do feel that blogging about it may prove to be helpful...hold me accountable. And maybe someone, even one of you would be inspired to do the same. I don't usually finish things; one of the reasons why quilting/sewing is so satisfying. But this is really important.

My goal is to lose 45 lbs. by October 1st. That's possible. That's only 6 pounds a month!

I won't share much more information except that I am 5'9 and am a size 18. I'm posting a couple before pics so that if you're interested in following any progress you can see it as well (oh goodness this is really starting to sink in...).



And since I don't want to have you leave the blog on a fatty note, here's a couple pics of sewing related things. I received my swap package from the Doll Quilt Swap, and I just dropped off that queen size quilt to my local long arm quilter. I will FOR SURE post pictures of it when it comes back.