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I have started to work out nightly since September 1st every night I have been adding more and more to it which is probably why I am no longer down 8lbs but, am now down 14lbs. I am pretty stoked on that to say the least.

Tonight though I wanted to talk about what got me started and that is a little 30 day challenge to do with squats. I thought okay I want to tone up my thighs cause I am really unhappy with them and always have been. I started doing the challenge featured on the left with a corresponding link. The first day I was like cool this is great then I hurt a bit the next morning. I did day 2 and could barely walk I wanted to cry and stop. I took a day off to stop from hurting so much then went to day 3 OMG the pain was back with a vengeance. At this point I wanted to stop I didn't want to go any further with the challenge and I wanted to give up. Here comes Day 4 (which was day 5 since I took that day off)and I tried to do a few and it started to ache and I wanted to cry. I stood up thinking I

am just going to rest today and pick it up again. As I was thinking this my son came over and started doing squats and pulled my hand and said "Mommy do. ***** do." That is when I realized my whole reason for starting this journey again was not only for myself to be healthier but, for my son to have a healthy Mommy so, he would make healthy choices in his own life. Needless to say I kept going and today day 19 I can tell you I have not only lost those 14lbs but, I have lost 2 inches on my thunder thighs. I have 10 days to go on this challenge and I have picked another leg challenge to do starting October 1st.

At the end of the day I have not only been doing this squat challenge but, I have been doing some
stuff with hand weights as well as at least 15 minutes a day on my elliptical. I have been making myself walk more and just making all together healthier choices. I can't wait to do my update photos in December to show how much I have changed in 3 months. I am hoping to keep my momentum up and get this pesky fat gone so, that my son will have a wonderful role model to look up to because as he proved to me with his baby squats he is always watching me.

8 lbs...

Me before I got pregnant. 40lbs from my goal.

From September 1st to September 10th I lost 8lbs. I have gained almost 80lbs from when I was pregnant and the 2 years since my son was born that I have been slightly ashamed of myself which is why that 8lbs means so much to me. I have been eating better and working out every single day since September 1st and to see that much weight come off the scale was a shock and I didn't believe it until I weighed myself 3 times and it was the same each and every time. That 8lbs has given me the will power to keep going every single night because I have a goal in mind of where I want to be this time next year and I know I am going to have to fight myself to get to it.

My goal is simple I want to lose between 5 and 10lbs a month until I am down to my goal weight. That would put my weight from 60-120lbs down if I lose the full 120 I will be at my goal weight by the end of the year and that would mean all I would need to do is maintain my weight which is going to be easy once I get myself back onto my schedule like I was before I got pregnant.

I am not using my pregnancy as an excuse in this but, I know it contributed to my weight gain. Not
because I was pregnant and thought I could eat everything because I really couldn't hold down food while I was pregnant. It actually was me being so sickly while pregnant that I feel helped me to become so lazy. Add in the whole I missed food and tended to overeat because I was getting over practically starving myself because of having morning sickness my whole pregnancy. Then just adding in the injuries my body sustained through carrying my son to term and giving birth to him when my body was just unable to support labor. It all helped me to mentally put things off to allow myself to become lazy.


Also being a single mom helped to contribute and not in the way that I think people believe being a

September 1, 2015

single mom contributes to it. I was sad all the time because I always hear about my friends kids Dad's doing this or that with their children and while I was happy for them it made me realize more and more how my son would never have that. Yes, his Dad is sort of back in the picture now but, he is still not a Dad seeing how he is 1,000 miles away. That means I still have all those sorrowful feelings for my son and I blame myself deep down for it because I chose his Dad in a way and I chose poorly .

Don't take that last line as I think he is a sorry human being or something because I don't think that I think he made the best choice for all of us at the time. He wasn't ready to be a family he was in a bad place and there was no need for him to be in our lives when he was not ready because it would have led to him hating us and all 3 of us didn't deserve that. I have always and will always respect him for his choice to leave even though it has hurt our family (yes, we have always been a family even separated) in a way that we will always have scar tissue. However, that scar depending on where we go from here will either make us a stronger family or always cause an ache for all of us it is up to us to choose how our scar tissue will heal. I am betting on stronger because we are Scottish and Irish which makes us indomitable. 

At the end of the day though the only person I have to blame for my dramatic weight gain is myself. I am ashamed of myself on a deep level for allowing it to get so out of hand. I am not going to sit here and beat myself up over it though I am just going to move forward from this and make my future better than it would be if I didn't get up off my butt and change these poor habits!
 

Facebook

I deactivated my Facebook tonight. It will automatically reactivate on the 26th of September. I feel that I need to take some time away from the social media network because it was just upsetting me and taking time away from what I really need to be focusing on right now. I found that Facebook was making me more upset that it needed to and it wasn't really adding to my day to day life however I was still checking it mostly out of boredom. I feel that I need to make another habit to help elevate my boredom because I have so, much to be done that I shouldn't be bored ever.

Harry Potter...

Picture credit

We decided to watch ALL 8 Harry Potter Movies this week. I have never seen movie 7 part 2 which is kind of hilarious in a way because we watch all the movies about twice a year but, somehow I have missed out on seeing 7.2.

Anyways... It was nice to sit as a family (my toddler included) watching movies and eat snacks and just have a nice time of it.  My son loved the magic parts of the movie and every time it was scary he ROARED at the Telly as loud as he could to scare the scary things away. He loved the dragons as well; he is a dragon lover. All in all great family fun.

We had planned to start another series of movies (I voted for The Hobbit followed by The Lord of the Rings) however, we were all so emotional over the end of Harry Potter we have decided to wait to put ourselves through another emotionally wrenching marathon.

With all the nice things being said about the togetherness of watching the movies I can now say why I am happy we only watch them 2 times a year. I am an avid reader I love to read. I have read all of the Harry Potter books more than once (I am probably going to start them over here in a minute too) because I love them so much. That is why the movies are slightly painful for me to watch. I understand fully that they will always have to leave things out of the book when they make a movie but, to leave out so many key points and then to blatantly change things so that they don't even match the book makes my blood boil.

Pretty much all of The Deathly Hollows part 2 annoyed me to my core. Yes, there were several things that were exactly as they were in the book but as a whole I found there to be more discrepancies than any of the others and maybe it is because the scenes that they changed were some of my favorites that I noticed so much. I do not understand why they have to fundamentally change the movie from the books from about Movie 3 on up they had stayed so close to the books for the first 2 movies I expected that from the remaining 6.

I love the movies for what they are and try to take them at face value but, sometimes it just irks me that they seemed to have never read the book before creating the script.    

Iced Lemon Cookies

Cookies
½ cup 1 tbsp Coconut flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
¾ cup granulated sugar
3 Tbsp lemon zest
½  cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 egg
¼ cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp White chia seeds flour*
3 Tbsp water


Icing
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

Instructions

1.     Preheat the oven to 350 F.
2.     In a small bowl combine Chia seeds and water. Stirring slightly until a gel forms. Should look like the consistency of an egg. Set aside
3.     Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a bowl. Set aside.
4.     With clean fingers, rub the sugar and lemon zest together until fully incorporated. Combine with the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer, and cream together on medium-high until light and fluffy (4-6 minutes), scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
5.     Add the egg, mixing until incorporated, then the lemon juice, chia mixture, and vanilla.
6.     Combine the wet and dry ingredients, and mix until just combined.
7.     Chill the dough for 30 minutes before rolling into slightly flattened 1oz balls and baking on a parchment-lined cookie sheet for 20-22 minutes. The edges will be set but the tops of the cookies should not brown.
8.     Let the cookies fully cool before whisking the powdered sugar and lemon juice together for the icing. Dip each cookie into the glaze. Set aside till the icing is set

    Serve and enjoy.

*If you can’t find white Chia flour you can use black Chia flour instead it will just change the coloring of the cookie. Also if you can just find the seeds in either white or black you can either use the seeds as is or grind them into a flour.

*Instead of Chia you can use unflavored gelatin and you would just mix 1 Tbsp into the lemon juice and wait for it to gel. Or you can add another egg.