Yeast Free Challenge Update, Our New Home & Our New Church

Today marks the 11th day of the 30 Day Yeast Free Challenge and day 13 of my weight loss challenge at work! I am happy to say that at my first weigh in last Friday at work I had lost 4.1 pounds! WHOHOO!! I would love to tell you that every day it gets easier but, I would by lying. Maybe if I were home and could cook all my meals but I am in Baton Rouge, LA right now staying in a hotel and eating out 3 meals a day. Next week will be tough too...I will be in California. Everyone always says "Oh you can do it, just order salads and fish & veggies; it's not that hard." Umm, that is a nice thought and all but that is much easier said than done. But, so far I am doing a pretty good job of self-control. I have been eating a lot of seafood, grilled chicken and eggs this week. And I worked out in my hotel room and hotel gym 3 times so far. This past Saturday I had my 2nd session with my trainer and he nearly killed me again...I actually think he was TRYING to make me puke. He almost succeeded! I will meet with him again this Saturday too. I can already tell I am getting stronger, my clothes are getting a little lose and I am feeling so much better! This whole "yeast-free" thing is not something I plan to stick with after the 30 days but it is really helping me not crave sweets and carbs and teaching me a lot about self-control. :)


Our new house is officially DONE!! Now the inspections will start and go for the next week or so. Chris & I have our first walk thru next Friday the 3rd. So, depending on how that goes, we will HOPEFULLY be moving in the week of the 6th!!! Here it is this past Sunday: (please ignore the leaning tree in front...that is being fixed!)


We have been visiting Fellowship of The Woodlands (Woodlands Church) for the past few weeks and so far we are LOVING it! Many of you may have heard of the pastor there or seen him on TV...his name is Kerry Shook. His sermons are televised every week. I grew up Baptist and Chris grew up Methodist. We both have our churches we grew up in, in The Woodlands but we talked about it and decided to try out a couple others too. FOTW is non-denominational but it is still a Bible-based church and we believe in what they believe in. The services are full of energy, entertainment and always a great message that we can relate to. My husband loves it because the the pastor is pretty much as sports-obsessed as him! The first Sunday we visited, the pastor interviewed Lance Berkman, this past weekend The Flying Walenda's were there, this weekend Herschel Walker will be there and the next weekend, RG3 will be there! The men are LOVING this! And, we even got married in the Chapel there and went thru some pre-marriage classes there that we loved. So, this church holds a special place in my little heart :) I am excited to be getting back involved in a great church and can't wait to see what the next several weeks will hold!

Hellooooo, Friday!

We made it to Friday!! Hallelujiah! Now for some randomness & updates! :)

-Our house is hopefully going to be ready next Tuesday!! YIPPY! BUT...we still have to go thru walk thru's and inspections before we can close. So, we are hoping to move in the weekend of February 4th and 5th but it could be a few days later. Not a very good picture, but this was on Wednesday when they were working on the landscaping:


-Today is my last day in the office for 2 weeks. Monday I head to Baton Rouge for 5 days then will be home next weekend. Then, Monday the 30th I head to California for 5 days. This is the first time I have had to travel for work 2 weeks in a row and thankfully it will probably never happen again. But, I am going to try to squeeze in a little fun while I am gone...my brother in law goes to LSU so I will see him a couple nights and hopefully eat some yummy cajun food and in California I will be with several other people and we will be right in the middle of the wine country so we are going to try to go to a couple wineries (even though I can't have alcohol for 25 more days...eeek!).


- Today is day 5 of the 30 day yeast free challenge and my first weigh in for the weight loss competition at work! I am very happy to say that I have stuck with the yeast free diet 100% this week. But, it has not been easy. Wednesday afternoon was ROUGH to say the least. I hit a big wall...I could barely keep my eyes open and every thing was irritating me. I was about ready to give up and just eat a big plate of carbs but I didn't. I was super grumpy and took it out on my hubby on our hour commute home. He was thrilled to be carpooling with me that day I am sure! Now, I have gotten over that hump and feel much, much better. My clothes are fitting a little loser and I just FEEL so much better. Less bloated and full and I have more energy! I don't even crave sweets and breads anymore...but I am having serious cravings for fruit and sushi. I mean SERIOUS cravings for these 2. I have worked out every day this week except for Wednesday too so I am hoping all this hard work is paying off! I have Kim Kardashian body envy so this is what I am aiming for (minus her boobs):


- Hubby and I booked our 1 year anniversary trip this week!! I will reveal the location and all the details later but I am SO SO SO excited! We had planned on going to Greece & Italy and doing a Mediterranean cruise but we decided that was way too expensive to do right after buying a new house so we opted for one of our favorite vacation spots and saved a ton of money. In 4 months this is where we will be:
One of the many pools & swim up bar's at our resort :) Can.not.wait.

Beeeeautiful beach! It looks exactly like this too!


- We found out last night we got tickets to the final round of The Masters this year!! This will be our 4th year going but we usually go on Friday or Saturday. My Dad asked my cousin who has lifetime tickets if he minded if we went on the final day instead and he said yes! I used to not be a golf fan but going to The Masters these past few years has changed that.


Hope you all have a great weekend!!

My Biggest Loser Trainer & Day 1 of Yeast-Free Recap

Last night was my first session with my new personal trainer. HOLY.COW. It hurts to type this if that tells you anything! I seriously felt like I was on an episode of the Biggest Loser. My trainer threatened my life a couple times, called me a wuss and pushed me harder than I have ever been pushed. For now I am going to train with him 2 days a week and workout on my own 3 days. This is the schedule he put me on and he says he will be checking daily to see if I "checked-in" to the gym and if he sees that I have missed any days he is going to take it out on me at our next session. Terrific. You better believe I am not going to miss any days. This is what I need though...I need the motivation and accountability. So, here is a look at my workout schedule this week-

Sunday 1/15/12- 30 min cardio, 20 min abs/arms
Monday 1/16/12- 1 mile on eliptical, 1 mile on treadmill and 50 minutes with trainer
Tuesday 1/17/12- 30-45 minutes of cardio
Wednesday 1/18/12- OFF
Thursday 1/19/12- Body Pump class at gym
Friday 1/20/12- OFF
Saturday 1/21/12- 50 minutes with trainer, 20 minutes of cardio
Sunday 1/22/12- 30-45 minutes of cardio

He says with my diet plans and this style of working out I should not have any trouble reaching my goal in the next few months. Whohoo! I am so excited to be back in a gym although I am waddling around like a 9 month pregnant woman today... ;)

ALSO...day 1 of the yeast free challenge is DONE! I stuck with it 100% and I am so proud of myself. It was not even that hard. I have drastically cut back on carbs and dairy the past week so that made yesterday a tad bit easier. I still have 29 days to go but I feel like I am off to a great start! Here is what I ate yesterday:

Breakfast- 7:00 AM
2 hard boiled eggs
2 pieces of bacon

Snacks- 9:00 AM & 10:00 AM
almonds

Lunch- 11:45 AM
Luby's Roasted chicken (white meat), cabbage and green beans

Snack- 2:30 PM
almonds
4 midget pickles
cup of green tea

Dinner- 7:45 PM
grilled tilapia
steamed carrots and brocolli



Everything I ate was delicious and filling and I did not even crave sweets in the middle of the afternoon like I usually do. YES! I know after a few days I am going to have to start getting creative and come up with some more exciting recipes...I can definitely see that hard boiled eggs for breakfast every day will get real old, real quick. I pinned a Egg Muffin recipe on Pinterest that I plan on making tonight...recipe will come later this week!

I am slightly worried about the next 2 weeks...next week I am in Baton Rouge for work for the week, then the next week I will be in California for work for a week. Eating out 3 meals a day is going to be tough! But thankfully I have this week to get me started and rid my body of the sugar/carb cravings AND I have a gym at my hotels! This is what I need to remember:

The "Newlywed 15" diet & Steve Jobs

Remember in college when almost everyone gained the "freshman 15"? Well, I have gained the "newlywed 15." In the 5 months I have been married I have definitely put on some pounds. I have not been eating good and pretty much stopped working out/running so I completely understand why I have gained wait. Well, last week I went to a doctor appointment and got my yearly blood work done. First I got a call on Wednesday morning that my Triglycerides were really high...they were 280. Normal is 150. BUT, luckily they were only that high because I had eaten about 5 hours before the blood work. I had not fasted because I had forgotten I would have blood work done. SO, that made me feel a little better but they still wanted to re-do my blood work after I had been fasting for at least 8 hours so, I got it re-done and got the results back yesterday...my triglyceride levels are 186. They are still high, but not nearly as high as the first test. This was a pretty big wake up call for me. Having high triglycerides greatly increases your risk for heart disease and other health issues. The doctor said they were high but not high enough for them to put me on medicine or take any drastic measures. He said I just need to get back to exercising regularly and cut back on the carbs, sugars and high fat foods. Thankfully this is a fairly easy fix. I have known I needed to start eating better and start exercising again but I just have not done it. Now, I am going to do it.

I read something yesterday really stuck with me... I don't remember the exact quote but it was something saying that when you worry about something, that is pretty much all you do about it- worry. But, when you are concerned about something, that is when you take action. Well, I am officially concerned. I am a healthy (minus this issue), newly married 29 year old who wants kids eventually and a long life. So, it is time to make some serious changes.

Here are some of my goals:
-Exercise a minimum of 3 times a week, but my goal is 5 times
-Cut out the sweets bigtime. I eat entirely too much bad sugar.
-Cut back on the carbs...especially the white ones. I am not going to be unrealistic about this. I am still going to eat bread and pasta here and there. But, I am going to limit it when I can and instead of 2 pieces of bread at dinner, have 1. Stuff like that.
-Stop drinking a Dr. Pepper or Red Bull in the mornings. I usually have one or the other in the morning...I need caffeine and I hate coffee. I know everyone is going to say' "Drink more water". Well, I literally can not drink more water...I drink about 10 bottles of water a day, every day. I drink more water than anyone I know. I have that going for me :)
-Consistently take my vitamins. I have always been good about taking vitamins but I do tend to forget to take them sometimes or will not take them for a month or so, then start again. I need to consistently take them every day, every week.
-I drink alcohol a couple times a month and usually only have a couple drinks because I get sick easily so when I do drink, stick to low sugar options.
-Eat A LOT more chicken, fish & veggies!!!

Have any of you ever been in a similar situation? What did you do?
My hubby is on board too so that will make it easier. So, that's my story & my plan :)


Next, I saw these quotes from Steve Jobs on Facebook this morning and love them so I have to share....

"Your time is limited so don't waste it living someone else's life"

"If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on."