Staycation

Happy Monday!!!

I am happy to say that Johnnie and I are on STAYCATION!!!  Did I ever mention he's a police officer?  Anyway, he is and he works twelve hour shifts.  He was really glad to get a little break, especially since this Louisiana heat is really starting to kick in!  We've had pretty mild summer temperatures, compared to the past few years, but mild or harsh August is just HOT!!!  He has been off since Friday, but staycation really didn't start until this morning.  We had a pretty busy weekend, but it was super fun!

We enjoyed going to the youngest grand-girl's birthday party on Saturday evening.  She turned 8 and is such a sweetheart. She LOVES her papa!  Lucky for the children that the party was at the aquatic club.  They stayed cool in the pool while the grown-ups did some serious sweating!!

Sunday was church day!  One of my cousins was one of the co-preachers and he did a really great job.  I really enjoyed class and church and didn't mind the drive one bit!  I was also very thankful that my husband went with me.  I hope he enjoyed it as much as I did.

I am still going strong on my quest to lose weight and get healthy!  I have not deviated from my diet once since I started.  I know it's only been a week, but usually by now I have cheated so I am proud of me!  For some reason this time is different.  I've already made some needed changes like doing away with diet drinks and drinking more water.

This time I have added some real exercise to my daily routine.  Johnnie and I have walked for around 40 minutes each morning for the past 4 days.  We try to get it done early in the morning because it's miserably hot by about 9:40am.

I also need to give a shout out to Myfitnesspal.com.  I am using it to record my daily intake of food and water and also the amount of exercising I am doing.  It's a really great site.  There are recipes, blogs and lots of real and virtual friends to turn to for support and encouragement.  I know it's going to be a slow process, but I am committed to making some healthy changes in my life.  This is a little FYI nugget - Did you know that okra and tomatoes only have 20 calories per serving?  I was very happy to learn this because I LOVE okra and tomatoes.  The great thing about Myfitnesspal is that it tells you how many calories you need to eat to achieve the goals you want to reach.  It also figures in exercise and water consumption into the equation.  The website lets you eat whatever you want to eat, you just have to make sure you don't go over the suggested calories.  I even had 2 margaritas this weekend, I just had to record them!  Can you tell how much I LOVE THIS SITE???

I am trying to lose weight by eating a cleaner diet.  A girlfriend of mine told me that she'd lost about 30 pounds by simply eating foods as close to the way that they are found in nature as possible.  It takes a little planning and a little longer in the grocery store, since label reading is a MUST, but I am finding that there are a lot of foods that I love that are also good for me so maybe I won't burn out on this!  Oh, here's another little nugget - Schwan's Live Smart Vanilla Ice Cream Sandwiches only have 140 lbs and the chocolate ones have 150 calories.  Yes, that's not all natural, but I am a chocoholic and I know that I better allow myself some treats or else I will break the diet for sure!  I also discovered Italian Fire Roasted Cod Fish from Schwan's.  It's a really light, white fish that does not take fishy at all!  I am kinda funny about the seafood that I eat so I was excited to discover this tasty entree!

I am on a mission to get healthy!  I am not ready yet, but once I have made some REAL progress I will post some before/during/after photos.  I may even get crazy and give my starting weight!  I am so ready for that to weight to be a part of my PAST!!!  I know this is gonna take a while..... I HATE BEING PATIENT!!!