Confessional

May I take a little time today, mid-week, to confess my grains?

Sunday was the Avocado Festival and I ate 2 orders of guacamole with chips = corn
Monday I shared a box of mac n cheese and a quesadilla with Squishy = wheat and corn

I have lost 5 pounds in the last week eating only those grains.  I am very pleased but I also kind of feel like I cheated.

I have been great about getting at least 2-3 miles of walking in each day for the past few days.  The kidlets seem to enjoy it, and I know the sunshine and exercise are never a bad combination for me and my mental health.  We are going to head out on foot today to drum up a few more donations for Relay For Life you can click on that link and donate directly to my team! Don't you love technological advances?

I am going to finish my green smoothie before our walk this morning.

What did you have for your breakfast?

Green Smoothie Anybody?

Green Smoothie

This is my pre-workout breakfast this morning.  I used this handy How-to Guide and I will share my exact recipe with you:

1 cup coconut milk (no sugar)
2 cups Kale (I didn't even bother to trim the stems)
1 cup fresh fruit (Mango, Kiwi, apricots)
1TBS coconut oil
1TBS chia seeds
dash of pure stevia
and a small drizzle of honey (can you tell I love my smoothies sweet?)

I blended this until it was super smooth and it is so delicious.  I don't taste the kale at all, and it is full of healthy fat, super veggie, omega 3's, fiber, and energy.

Motivation

For motivation I love to hear stories or see photos.  And wow oh wow oh wow did I find the mother load of motivation photos.  My sister is doing Crossfit and I wish her the absolute best.  She seems to be enjoying it and has found a way to work it into her busy schedule so it must be truly worth it.  I went looking for Crossfit photos today, have you seen these? These women are ripped, hot, and sweaty.  There is nothing polished or glamorous about them, yet they exude some raw sexiness.  Now I can understand why my sister is so enthralled.  All of that hard work pays off with cut abs, chiseled thighs, and defined biceps.  These women are definitely elite athletes.

I will share with you the link I found today so you can go grab a little of this same motivation.  Here,

Please let me know what you think!

26th Annual Avocado Festival

One word: YUM!

My sister and her family joined us, my Dad drove out from Las Vegas, and we all walked at least 3 miles today. It was a gorgeous day in the mid 60's, clear blue skies, and a fresh breeze blowing.  Our very first stop was at Holy Guaca-moly, Inc for a big scoop of guacamole over chips.  It is the absolute best you can get, so if you run across it, buy it up (it freezes well according to my sister).

Navigating the festival with a 2 1/2 year old walking with us was interesting this year, but Squishy did very well... and my darling hubby carried her on his shoulders for quite a bit of the day.  I wore Frank up in our Ergo Baby carrier and she ended up taking a nice nap about the time I stopped for a second helping of Holy Guaca-moly (see, it's that good!).

We had some street tacos, 1 fish and one steak, the steak was by far the better tasting taco.  My husband had a strawberry lemonade that had at least 1/4 cup of sugar at the bottom, it looked delicious, but I stuck to water.

I may have taken a brief break from eating no grains today, but believe me tonight is back to no grains.  I am doing a great job of not craving them, not begging for them, and I have been finding healthy substitutes.  I am proud of myself.

I am hunting around Pinterest (Follow me here) for weight loss motivation.  Don't be surprised if I start printing things out and taping them up on the fridge to keep myself from snacking unnecessarily.  I am a highly visual person and I definitely love my snacks to be easy to grab and go.

I have been making homemade Lara Bars over the past few days... and I tried to tell myself AND my husband that they are for the kids, but I find myself reaching for them more and more.  They are scrumptious. I made a knockoff of the apple pie flavor and it is delicious!

For 12 small bars I used:

1.5 cups pureed dates and dried apples
1.5 cups roughly chopped nuts (almonds, cashews, and peanuts)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
3 tsp vanilla
and the tutorial link above will tell you how to make many other flavors, and of course how to assemble your Lara Bars.  These are great for quick energy, they are vegan, gluten free, dairy free, and yummy!

Walking for weight loss

I have had great results with walking for weight loss.  Walking at least 3 miles a day, 7 days a week burns around 1,500 (an average of 74 calories/mile) calories all together, which is awesome! While I was going through my divorce I had to walk 3 miles round trip to the closest bus stop, that didn't include the walking I did at work, or the times when the bus wasn't running when I got off work, or the times when I had to take the bus into town so early that I just ended up walking around for hours before work.  I would guess that I walked off about 4,600 calories/week (or 9 miles/day).  I would walk up and down the hill I lived on sometimes 4 or more times a day, sometimes I would walk the 14 miles round trip to and from work when the bus wasn't running on Sundays.

The calculator for figuring out how many calories you are burning while walking is:

.52 multiplied by your body weight in pounds = total calorie burn
.30 multiplied by your body weight in pounds = net calorie burn

I grabbed this information from this article.  It explains that net calorie burn is the total calories burned minus how many calories you would have burned by doing nothing.  Interesting read... and of course it concludes that running burns more calories (who'd have thunk it?).

So is it any wonder that I lost 22 pounds in 6 weeks of this?

I stopped walking as much last year after Frank was born.  She is a very even tempered baby, but Squishy is a little bit on the high drama side and protested walks for weeks.  We are walking again and I am trying my best to get at least 2 miles a day in.  Next week I am going to make it a goal to get 3 miles in every day, starting this Sunday.  We have the Avocado Festival happening and I only live 1/2 mile from the main street.  So walking around then won't be any kind of hardship.

What are your favorite shoes for walking?

My weight loss journey

Thus far I have found myself slacking off.  I have had Insanity for about 5 months and have yet to complete a full 2 weeks in a row.

So here it goes: I weigh 5 pounds more than I did when I started doing Insanity in July.  I weigh 3 pounds more than I did when I bought Insanity in November.

I started eating Paleo in November/December/January and slacked off.  I lost 18 pounds in 2 weeks without grains... then I got lazy.

Yup, I have been lazy and have not been holding myself accountable for my own health.

Today I have banished grains from the house (the local Food Bank got some lovely donations).  I have motivation and sunshine and I have gone on 2 long walks in the last week.  But considering that I slacked off on walking last Spring, this is better than nothing.  My walk today was 2 miles but I really kicked some butt attempting to run up hill on the way home.

I had a goal to lose 35 pounds before April 1st... instead I gained 5.  So I am only setting a goal to feel fit, have more energy, and spend more time outside.

Who's with me?