Long Weekend!

Well Friday was my birthday! I usually really enjoy my birthday but we went out of town on Friday for a wedding and it just didn't feel like my birthday. I have to say that compared to all of my other birthdays this one really was no fun! I am officially 25 and it was officially the worst birthday ever, this growing up thing stinks! Anyways, enough of me crying over my not so great birthday, lol!

We spent the weekend in Ottawa, IL with our close family friends the Friedles. Their daughter Megan got married on Saturday. It was a great outdoor wedding at their home. They couldn't have asked for a better day! The down side to outdoor weddings however, happens when there are no clouds in the sky and at 3 pm the sun is directly beating down on your back as enjoy the wonderful ceremony. When the ceremony was over we later noticed that I had enjoyed a free sunburn during the wedding! Needless to say I am glad it wasn't a Catholic wedding or I could of been in some major trouble, because the ceremony only lasted 20 to 30 minutes tops! Thank goodness for the short ceremony!

Anyways, we did some shopping while we were there and I spent my birthday money to buy my self new clothes that were 1 and 2 sizes smaller! Yay! So that was a lot of fun. We are hoping to slide by until Christmas with the clothing that was purchased, so we don't have to spend money on more clothes! However, if the weight loss continues at this rate we could be shopping again before Christmas! I must say I did thoroughly enjoy this shopping trip! It was so much fun being able to wear a smaller size. My options are so much more when I don't have to buy all plus size clothes!

The downside to the weekend was the eating of course! It is so hard to eat healthy when you are out of town with other people. I just feel like now that I am on this diet every time we eat out it revolves around me. I have told everyone the types of places I can eat at and the types of food I can have but it always comes down to us stopping at places that have food I can't eat. The end result ends up being, "well I wish you would have told us you couldn't eat here, we would have gone else where." I am really struggling with this because I feel like I could tell them 1,000,000 times and they would still seem like they had no clue I couldn't eat at that place or eat that food. So if you could please pray for guidance and patience on my part when dealing with others and this issue I would greatly appreciate it.

I hope everyone has a great holiday weekend! We have a family birthday cookout to go to tomorrow for my sister-in-law and me so I will update on that with pictures hopefully(if I can figure it out) tomorrow!

Roll Call

I know a lot of you read my blog. I am interested in knowing who all is reading my blog and I am also interested in knowing what your thoughts are about it. Have you learned anything from it? Do you have any suggestions or helpful hints for me about weight loss ? I would also love to hear what has worked for you because maybe it will be helpful for me or someone else! I would love to hear from you so please let me know who you are :) Hope everyone is having a great day and I look forward to reading your comments!

Officially 25 pounds lost!

Well, today is a big milestone ,I have officially lost 25 pounds since July 28, 2008 and I feel wonderful! I am one fourth of the way to my goal of losing 100 pounds. I feel like I finally have the eating part down I just need to get the exercising part down. I have always struggled in this area. I need to be exercising a couple of times a week for at least 20 minutes and doing toning exercises so that I don't have a lot of loose skin as I lose weight. So my focus for the next month now that I have my eating under control is to get my exercise habits under control! So if you could please pray for the same inner strength that helped me to finally bring my eating under control to do the same for my exercise I would appreciate it! Thanks for the continued prayers and support :)

Nursing School Journey Begins

Well my my nursing school journey began today! Today was a pretty laid back day. But I am sure that the semester ahead will be far from laid back! I packed my lunch today and even went for a walk on my lunch between classes! I am still not fully recovered from the flu this weekend. My stomach is still not back to normal but, hopefully it will return to normal soon! Good night all.

The flu bug strikes again!

It never fails wherever the flu goes it finds me. My friends in home daycare had it earlier this week and I stayed away until after it was gone and the house was disinfected etc. but go figure I wake up with the flu this morning! It's been a yucky day. For some reason when I get the flu, I really get the flu. So bad that a year and a half ago it put me in the hospital for 3 days so I am very nervous and scared when I get the flu trying to avoid a repeat of history. Anyways, so to top it all off I had to go to a mandatory cpr/aed class today that I had to have completed before Monday. So go figure my roll of toilet paper and I made our way to ivy tech for what was supposed to be a four hour class and it turned it into a five hour class! Go figure! Oh well ! So I have had to have some Gatorade G2 today which is not on the diet because it has high fructose corn syrup in it, but you can't drink water when you are throwing up. Sprite would have been better, but I can't drink it with my medicine so G2 was the next best option. Hopefully it is just a 24 hour bug and I will feel better tomorrow when I wake up! But at this point I can't keep saltines and G2 down so we shall see! Night all!

Discovering new foods

I realized today that I haven't really told you what the basis of my lifestyle change is about. So here is a quick synopsis of the doctors orders. I am not allowed to eat any fried food, I am not allowed to have anything that has more than 5 grams of sugar in it per serving, no hydrogenated oil, no partially hydrogenated oil, no high fructose corn syrup, nothing that has sugar listed in the first 3 ingredients, I am to limit my intake of breads/grains to 2 pieces of whole grain bread a day, I am not allowed any more than 25 grams of saturated fat per day, I was not allowed any sugar/sweets/fruit for 2 weeks, now I can have 2 servings of fruit per day and those are the only sweets I am allowed to have, I am to only drink water, decaffeinated unsweetened tea, decaffeinated black coffee(which I hate tea and coffee so I can have Water!) and I am to only have 3 to 4 servings of red meat per week! Whew! So there you have a lot of rules of guidelines to live by eh? Oh and I am to eat 5 small meals a day. A small breakfast, a mid morning snack, a small lunch, an afternoon snack and dinner with appropriate single servings. Oh yeah and don't forget, don't eat within 3 hours of bedtime and do crunches daily and walk twice a week! Ok so there you have my life for the last 3 weeks, lots of adjustments! But becoming more and more normal everyday!

If you are trying to lose weight but you are a carb junkie you should try the whole wheat and whole grain products. Although I can't eat things like whole grain waffles and pancakes I can eat different things. The following products don't contain high fructose corn syrup or hydrogenated oils and they don't have sugar listed in the first 3 ingredients so I can eat them: barilla whole grain spaghetti, barilla whole grain penne noodles, mama mary's premade whole wheat pizza crust (I can only find this at meijer), aunt millies light whole grain bread, aunt millies hearth deluxe whole grain hamburger and hot dog buns and kix cereal. These are things that I can have occasionally. I am trying to make a pizza or pasta dish once a week as a treat! The kix I am alternating in and out of my breakfast routine in place of my bread for the day! I am very limited on the amount of grains I can have in one day so I have to choose carefully!

Even if you aren't dieting, these foods are healthy alternatives for you and your family! With the pizza you can put turkey sausage and turkey pepperoni and load it up with veggies and enjoy a great pizza while cutting the fat and calories! Happy eating!

A bump in the road

Just when you think things are going well you always have to hit a bump in the road! Well today I hit my bump. I have been doing really well avoiding all the things that I really want to eat. Like cookies, ice cream etc. However, I ran across oreos today and I just couldn't resist anymore. I just had to have some. I have been watching Eric eat cookies and funnel cakes and other sweets for days now! So, I allowed myself to have some. But the good news is I stopped at 3 and didn't eat anymore. I then sent the remaining cookies home with my brother-in-law and assured my husband that there would be no more of those in the house! LOL!! I figured I have been sharing all of the good things that have been happening with the lifestyle change, but I decided I should also share the struggles! The reality is that no matter how well things go and how much self discipline you have, you WILL hit bumps in the road. The issue will be how you choose to handle those bumps in the road. Like I choose to stop at 3 cookies when I really wanted to eat the entire bag, although the better option would have been to not eat any!! So I am now back on track. I have had my sugar fix for the time being and I hope that there is at least 3 weeks before the next bump in the road! And hopefully next time I am strong enough to say NO! We shall see! God Bless!!

Fun times with good friends!

This weekend Eric and I had the pleasure of getting hang out with 2 of our good friends whom we haven't seen for a while. We shared dinner at the Roadhouse with them last night. In which on my lifestyle change endeavors I was able to enjoy a 6 oz sirloin, a baked potato, a side salad and of course my new favorite drink of choice WATER!!!

Today we headed down to Noblesville to the new Hamilton Town Center Mall. It was pretty neat. We really enjoyed just walking around and checking things out, while of course just window shopping on our new found budget! We then met back up with our friends and went to the Indiana State Fair for the afternoon. While there Eric and our friends enjoyed some great fair food while I of course salivated but was not tempted! We stopped at Steak and Shake after we left and I had a partial cup of chili, cottage cheese and half of a steakburger with no bun (I brought my own of course!)

I definitely am learning to be more prepared as we go out and about. Today I took a little lunch bag with an ice pack, spray butter(the only kind I can have), light ranch, and string cheese for snacks. It worked out very well! However, I should have packed water because it was 2 and 3 dollars a bottle at the fair! So I opted for the free cups of ice! Anyways, hope you all have a good evening!

P.S. This lifestyle change gets easier everyday!!!

Trusting God

Eric and I have recently made the decision for me to quit my job. This is a really difficult decision for us to make because financially we can't afford to do this. But we have prayed about it a lot and we feel like this is what we are supposed to do. So we are taking a major leap of faith and trusting that God will pull us through the next two years, although we know He won't make it easy! You may be wondering why we made this decision?! Well the decision was made after we found out that I will be starting nursing school on August 25th. This will be take up a large amount of my time and will not allow for normal working hours. I was only going to be able to work 1 day a week at the job I currently had and wouldn't be making much. I would then only have 1 entire day a week where I didn't have other obligations. Well, to put it simply I don't handle stress very well and I end up making myself physically sick if I am not careful. So after praying about it we decided that the best option for my stress level to be as low as possible and for me to be able to get through nursing school was for me to not work. Because I cannot miss class or clinicals, if I miss more than 1 day I fail the class! We hope that we made the right decision. We would appreciate prayer as we adjust to living on a tighter budget and cutting some things out.

The lifestyle change continues to go well. It gets easier everyday and I feel better each and everyday! Praise God! If you ever need any help or if you are struggling with weight yourself and you just want to chat feel free to email me at ericncasey@yahoo.com ! God Bless!!

Comcast is Annoying!

Sorry for the delay in blogging but a comcast employee cut our cable/internet line last Thursday while burying our neighbors new line. So needless to say we haven't had cable/internet until today because it takes a thousand years, or so it seems, to get someone out to your house when there is a problem!

So now that I am connected to the real world again here we go! Last week went really well. I am continuing to adjust to the lifestyle change more and more everyday. I ran into some difficulty this weekend however when we were in Wisconsin for the weekend. I thought for sure it would be fairly easy to stick to my eating habits while we were gone because you can get plain grilled chicken or unseasoned meat everywhere, right?! WRONG!! I had a horrible time finding something to eat. We went to cracker barrel and I ordered plain grilled chicken tenders with no seasoning, a side salad and cottage cheese. The waitress returns moments later and states that she can't get the chicken without seasoning because it comes pre-seasoned. So I proceeded to ask about the other meat on the menu only to find out that all of their meat pork chops, steak, chicken etc. all had some kind of seasoning on it. So needless to say I finally found a hamburger that didn't have any seasoning added to the meat and was finally able to eat dinner after spending a good 20 or more minutes scouring the menu for something other than a plain salad.

Overall, I have lost 16 pounds since I started my lifestyle change on July 28th. I am very excited about the weight loss. I am also excited about how I have never been able to anything like this before and now I know that I CAN do all things through my God if I just trust and believe! If you are trying to lose weight or just be healthier, lean on God and believe, he truly can work miracles! God Bless!

Great Weekend

Well Eric and I had a good weekend. We spent the weekend together hanging out with friends and relaxing for a change. I found that sticking to the diet over the weekend wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I was definitely dreading Sunday dinner today as it is a big to do in Eric's family with a big meal and of course desert. However, I spoke with Eric's mom ahead of time and informed her I would be bringing my own lunch so I wouldn't be tempted so much and it worked out nicely. I heated up my food and ate with everyone else and I was able to enjoy dinner without thinking "What can I eat?!" So my ability to control food instead of letting food control me is absolutely getting easier to say the least.

I did some shopping this weekend and found some other things that I could eat. I was telling my husband that food tastes so bland without high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils in it. I kept saying I wanted some spice. So this evening we headed to buffalo wild wings and found out that a lot of their sauces don't contain those things and most of them don't contain any grams of sugar on the nutrient label either, SCORE! So we bought some to spice up our chicken at home so I am way looking forward to eating some chicken with a kick. We also found individual serving size packs of light ranch dressing that I can carry in my purse so that wherever we end up at I will always have dressing I can eat! Needless to say it was a good weekend !!

P.S. I have lost 11 pounds!! Yippee!!

~Casey~

Update on the week

Since my last blog lots of things have gone on. I realized that I forgot to tell you one small but important tid bit of information on my initial blog, so I will tell you that information now. At my doctors visit on Monday my doctor also placed me on a new regulator medication for my migraines. This medication has made me sick in the past but my doctor was very persistent about putting me on it for several reasons the main one being the prevention of migraines but this medicine also has some side effects that would be beneficial for me such as appetite loss, taste change (mainly unable to drink carbonated beverages, so no soda) and a few other related things. I reminded him that it made me sick last time we tried but he persisted. Ok now that we have the background begins my update.....

I began taking this medication last Wednesday and I have been oh so very nauseated with it. To the point that I have done pretty much nothing for a 9 days but go to work and sleep, so therefore also slacking with the blog. I have even missed 2 days of work because of being so nauseous. So yesterday (Thursday) I finally called the doctor and told him I couldn't take it anymore. I had been so awfully ill feeling and uncharacteristically lazy I couldn't take it. So he called me back and he decided to lower my dosage for now so that I only take it once a day at bedtime because I was feeling more nauseous in the mornings. So today I have felt much better!! Praise Jesus! He is going to slowly increase the dose as my body tolerates it.

The diet in the meantime has been going well amidst the nausea! I haven't varied from it at all and I am adjusting to eating MUCH smaller portions! I am drinking lots of water and I haven't had anything sweet in almost a week! It's a miracle! Haha because I love sweets!

As far as exercising well that is still coming along. I have done my two 20 minute walks that the doctor and I agreec to for the week. However, me and those crunches haven't quite became friends yet with the nausea hanging around! So there is still lots of room for improvement but I am heading in the right direction!

My husband has been a wonderful support with all of the new changes and I really appreciate it! Thanks honey for the encouragement! It means a lot! Love ya

~Casey~