THINMOM5's SparkPeople Blog

Exciting Update!

Thu, 26 Jul 2012 00:36:46 EST

Hello all!

I'm coming out of the dark to tell you about the release of my first novel, Gift of the Phoenix! I'm so excited about it! If you want to watch the trailer, read the first few chapters for free, or find out how you can help with the launch by participating in my Kickstarter campaign, go to my (developing) website: giftofthephoenix.com/

As for the weight loss, we've been on vacation in AZ for the past month and I've managed not to gain a ton of ...

148? Enough is enough

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 13:17:34 EST

Well, it's 2012. In the last 7 months I've gained 15 pounds. Eek. Not good. After keeping the weight off for 4 years, I can't let this happen now. So I'm back, I'm tracking, I'm going to stop eating like there are no consequences, and I'm going to get these poor neglected muscles back in shape. By the time we have our next SP GWA in Scottsdale, I'm going to be SMOKIN!

I'm Baaaack!

Mon, 3 Jan 2011 22:46:07 EST

Yep, it's spark time again, thanks to my best sparkgirls. Since I last posted I've been through some big life changes, including a divorce. I managed not to put the weight back on, but since I haven't exercised regularly in well over a year I lost all my muscle tone and really want to get it back. Flabby = icky.

I may or may not keep up with my blog and page, but I've joined the Bootcamp and will track my progress in my trackers.

Hooray for 2011. It's going to be a gre...

I'm rockin' now!

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 20:06:39 EST

Oh did you think I meant I'm rockin' with the exercise? Oh no, no, no. I haven't been on SP in awhile, but when I spun the wheel today I got 1000 sparkgoodies points. So I bought myself and MP3 player. Sweet!

(Yeah, okay, I'll try to have better news on the exercise front the next time I post.)

Bootcamp Update

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:38:53 EST

I just entered in today's workouts. I haven't been doing the challenges the last few days, but I've done everything else. Woo hoo!!! I'm doing better on my water intake, but still not at goal. I'll keep working on it. I'm going up and down with my food. I should probably start tracking again, because I think it's going to take cold, hard numbers to stop these old habits that are sneaking in. I'll think about it more tomorrow. Tonight I'm just tired.

Confession...

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 00:30:33 EST

I don't want to do the bootcamp video today. At all. Not at all. I'm tired and I just want to do nothing. And I ate too much dinner.

Alright...

I'm off to do the video now...

Edit:

I agree with the comment below. Getting started was the hardest part. Once I got going, it was fun. I like working out my arms more than any other part of my body.

Quick Accountability Check

Thu, 8 Jan 2009 01:14:20 EST

I'm off to bed, but first had to do a quick blog. I've done great keeping up with bootcamp. I've done all the exercises and, every day but today, did all the challenges. I forgot about today's challenge or I would've had one more serving of veggies. Ah well.

Not so great is I'm going backwards with my water intake, and haven't done well with my scripture reading streak.

I resolve to do better tomorrow.

New YOU Bootcamp

Sun, 4 Jan 2009 11:50:40 EST

Today is the first day of bootcamp, and I'm totally excited about it. It's short (just four weeks) and so I hope it will help me focus on establishing my exercise routine. I haven't done much in the way of exercising lately, so my goal is to get back in the habit and keep it up for the rest of the year.

It'd be awesome if I won the $500 bucks too. ;)

2009 Resolutions

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 18:40:07 EST

That's resolutions for the year 2009, not 2009 resolutions. That'd be kind of a lot. Anyway, here we go (in no particular order):

1. Write another book. I may or may not finish it by the end of the year - it depends on what the story needs. So my specific goal is minimum 3 hours a day, every day except Sunday. I don't know if I'm going to start this January 1 or not. Right now my family is in the middle of a pretty draining crisis. I'm not sure I'd be doing myself any favor...

The Year in Review

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 01:36:34 EST

Due to a family crisis, I haven't done much on Sparkpeople for awhile - or really much of anything that doesn't involve taking care of my family. But with the new year approaching, I got to thinking about my resolution list for 2008. It's been so long since I've looked at it, I couldn't remember everything that was on there. I went back tonight to check it out. Here's how I did.

2008 Resolutions:
www.sparkpeople.com/mypage_public_jo
urnal_individual.asp?blog_id=8...

I'm making it official.

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 13:14:30 EST

For several months now, I've been wondering if I needed to change my goal weight. On the one hand, I feel great. I get compliments all the time. I think in my regular clothes I look good. I wear a size 6 which I didn't even think was possible when I first started this. I once had someone say, "What size do you wear now, a 2??" It's almost like my brain is resisting the idea that I should be any smaller. I should be content and happy and call it good.

BUT I think I could stil...

Yippy Skippy!

Fri, 1 Aug 2008 13:20:57 EST

The month-long challenge between Toni and I is finally over! I'm pretty sure we tied (woo hoo!) but I need to go to her blog to be sure. I loved doing this! It really helped me get my inner motivation back. This morning I've already done my exercising, and I'm on track with both my food and water. Thanks so much Toni for doing this with me!

The Seventh Milepost in my Virtual Walk

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:19:24 EST

I'm loving the view here! This is Cascade Ranch State Park in California. Isn't it pretty??

I've gone almost 200 miles on my Virtual Walk now. I do realize I'm going a *cough* TAD slower than my teammates, but I'm okay with that. I like that I'm only counting miles I've actually walked, not minutes exercised. It's neat to know that if I really wanted to, I COULD walk the Highway One coastline. In... um... 10 months. But that's okay, right? :)

The Back on Track Challenge

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 04:41:30 EST

Toni and I are getting back on track together! At stake is a $50 gift card which we're hoping no one will have to buy. I've done a couple writing challenges with my buddy Evie and I love it that so far we've tied both times. The goal, afterall, is not to win but to help each other reach our goals. The money is more of a fear factor, LOL. Here are my three categories:

1. Exercise 30 minutes a day, 5x a week (max points possible = 5/week)
2. Drink 8 glasses of water 7x a...

Maintaining... mostly

Mon, 9 Jun 2008 16:40:01 EST

We just got back from a week-long trip to Texas, where good times and BBQ abounded! It was so much fun and I somehow managed to only gain 2 pounds. So I need to lose that again. But mostly I feel things are going well. It's far easier to maintain than to lose, and I've kept up with trying to be healthy in general. I'm still mindful of freggies, low fat milk, etc etc etc. I still need to kick my exercising up, and for the first time in months I'm actually excited to do that. I'm putting...

FINALLY!!!!

Tue, 13 May 2008 14:58:31 EST

I'm FINALLY at my sixth milepost on my virtual walk. Isn't it so pretty here??? :)

Edit - Ah, yes. Thanks Steph! This is the natural bridge near Santa Cruz, California

The Slacker Triumphs!!

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 13:25:47 EST

Today I worked my core and did some yoga. It was so fun!

104

Goals Update

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 02:04:41 EST

First, a report on my exercise goals for the week. I did nada. Zip. Zero. Zilch. How's that for nice?

The first half of the week, my oldest was home from school sick. So I couldn't walk as I normally would have. It turned out he had strep. Fortunately he could still go on the big campout with his dad and brothers this weekend, and dear hubbie promises me he's been giving him all his medicine. But anyway, that sort of shot my workout plans for the first half of the week.

Point-less Blog

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 23:17:45 EST

Yes, it's true. I'm writing an actual blog without receiving any points in return. I'm such a giver.

Actually, this is my blog about my new plan for working out. It's pretty loose. It may not even count as a plan. But I do feel good about it and I'm hoping this will work. My goal is just to stay active and not lose the muscle I've already built up. I decided these were the things that were bugging me about my old routine (which I've had for the last many, many months): bore...

The Blog of Desperation

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:34:42 EST

I really, really, really keep meaning to take a current pic of myself for the 80's team - I'm getting sick of all the old pics. But I didn't get it done and now I'm stuck with this. Ah well. This is me in second grade. What I remember most about wearing my hair like this all the time is that I hated regular ponytails because I thought they made my ears look big. LOL. Oh, here's the required caption: “I'm lovin' the 80s ~ Week 2 of April!!"

So why is this the blog of despera...

Quick Pic

Tue, 8 Apr 2008 00:30:29 EST

“I'm lovin' the 80s ~ Week 1 of April!!" (I really did mean to take a current pic this week but it just didn't work out.)

This is me and my best friend Tammy (I'm in front) at the San Diego Zoo. Tammy's been in several other pics I've posted because we more or less lived together. We often spent weekends at each other's houses and - as you see here - she came along on family vacations too. Because my real sister is so much older than me, Tammy felt more like a sister to me than...

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Tue, 1 Apr 2008 01:10:40 EST

First, here's a fun 80's pic of a Halloween party. I'm the pink rabbit (eek!). And... because I would never post this without getting points in return... here's the required caption: “This is me rockin’ to the 80s in honor of my 80s ML Team!"

Now, for the "Yes! Yes! Yes!" part:

I've seen 135 on the scale for a few days now, but didn't want to believe it until I weighed in this morning. It's still there! Woo hoo! So that means I'm at my new goal weight. Oh yeah! ...

Scaling Back... Again

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 20:13:42 EST

Well, just when I think I've scaled back SP stuff enough, I discover that I haven't. Partly, this is a time issue. Right now we have a lot going on, including building an addition onto our house. And we're doing this ourselves. I'm a tiny bit overwhelmed by this, but I'm sure it will turn out fine, even if it takes us forever. So my time is getting pinched and I'm finding it hard to make time for all my SP activities.

But the other factor is just that there are certain thing...

Resolutions Check-In

Wed, 5 Mar 2008 14:24:46 EST

This is in honor of my awesome Virtual Running/Walking team. First, my February goals:

The "No Computer from 4-7pm" is not as hard and fast as I'd planned, but that's mostly the way things have gone, and I'm definitely spending less time on the computer (during the day too). I'm much happier.

Staying on the SP track. Check. I weighed in at 137 this morning (squeeee!) but it won't be official until I see it a few more times. We shall see.

Not getting str...

Thank Goodness I Didn't Fall On My Face

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:49:55 EST

"I'm lovin' the 80s ~ Week 4 of February!!"

This is a truly horrible picture, but I'm posting it anyway. This is at a scout activity (where my son earned his Wolf Award - woo hoo!) and we were playing a relay game. It was boys against parents. We had to run out, grab a jump rope (now you know what I'm doing in the picture), jump 10 times in a row, then run back and tag the next person. Whichever team did it fastest won. Can you guess who won? It was the PARENTS! Oh yeah baby...

Celebratory Cheetos!

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 20:25:42 EST

Last Thursday I had jury duty. I spent the whole day there just to find out they had more questions they wanted to ask us - so we had to go back today. Egads. But at 3:30 I found out I was dismissed. Oh glory be and halleluiah! I managed not to do a happy dance right there at the court house, but on my way back to my car I allowed myself some celebratory Cheetos from a hot dog vendor. It was 160 calories for a TINY bag of Cheetos which was half air!! But that's okay. I knew I could a...

Er... what was I saying?

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 00:33:12 EST

Ahem. Well, Saturday we went to my sister's house for her son's birthday party. They ordered fried chicken with all the usual sides. Since it was a free day, I ate what I wanted and didn't worry about it. Unfortunately, they ordered about 4x the amount of food they needed. We ended up taking home a huge box of that greasy stuff, along with several corn on the cobs, and some mashed potatoes and gravy. Along comes today (er, NOT a free day) and yet somehow I mysteriously ended up having l...

A True Lifestyle Change

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 11:45:47 EST

Here's the thing, as amazingly helpful as SP is, it's pretty time consuming. My life is at a place right now where that isn't a big deal, but I know that isn't always going to be true. I know I'm not always going to be able to sustain this sort of time commitment. I have had two concerns about that.

The first used to worry me more than it does now, and that is that any decrease in time on SP will result in a decrease in exercise, an increase in weight, etc. Basically, will le...

Just for Points

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:10:48 EST

Ah, I know, I know. I should be doing some real blogging here. But the last several days I've been doing good with all my goals: food, exercise, low stress, and not living in front of the computer. It's been great. So here's a quick blog, with caption ("I'm lovin' the 80s ~ Week 2 of February!!"), and then I'm plowing through the rest of my computer stuff. I will try to do a legit blog this week though.

The Week Ahead

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 10:36:13 EST

Well, it's been a long week. I've been sick all week long, and fighting nausea for the last 3 or 4 days now. It's much better than it was and I feel like I can somewhat function normally, but the thought of doing situps makes me want to hurl. Drinking water has been hard too. Friday night I actually had a glass of Sierra Mist instead of water cuz it just felt better on my stomach. Fortunately (or unfortunately?) I haven't had much of an appetite so I had the calories to spare for it. I ...

Itty Bitty Blog

Thu, 7 Feb 2008 23:13:23 EST

Yes, I'm doing this just for the points. My plan this week was to take some current pictures of me working out, but since I've been sick all week and haven't worked out AT ALL, that sort of shot that plan to h***. The required caption is: "I'm lovin' the 80s - Week 1 of February." The real caption is: This is me and my grandma Easter day. She died almost 9 years ago now, and I still miss her. She was funny, smart, and classy - and not many ladies can claim to be all three.

I DID IT!!!!!!!!

Sat, 2 Feb 2008 11:43:24 EST

I did it!!! I met all my goals for this week. I feel so much better physically and emotionally. I feel back on track, and best of all, I'm not obsessing about the agent hunt. I'll just say now, that the agent hunt is going to be emotionally more intense next week if I'm not careful, so I'm going to stick with my "no more than an hour" rule. But anyway, I'm really happy about this little "fast break" as SP would call it. It totally worked. Woo hoo!

EDIT: I can't believe I di...

And she shall be called Skinny iPod Girl!

Fri, 1 Feb 2008 10:44:43 EST

Oh yeah baby, that's right. Not only do I have an iPod now (squeeee!) it was FREE! This guy my husband works with decided he needed an iVideo or whatever the heck it's called and this iPod just wasn't good enough for him. He found out I was in the market for an iPod and just GAVE it to me! All I have to get are earbuds and the cable to plug into the computer. Score baby! I think he left his songs on there too, but I'm not sure cuz I can't turn it on yet. Which makes me wonder, do I hav...

The Great, Amazing Multi-tasking Blog!!!

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 14:20:44 EST

This blog is going to cover it all baby! First of all, I gotta get those 80's points in! I'm truly not excited about posting yet another old pic of myself, I really was going to take a more recent one of me exercising, but it just didn't work out. So here I go with the most embarassing 80's pic I could find, big thighs, tiny chest and all! (Some things never change! LOL!) This was after one of my dance recitals. Here's the required caption: "This is me rockin’ in the new year to the 80...

So far so good

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 21:51:34 EST

I only have time for a quick entry, but I just had to say that so far I'm doing great on my goals. Yesterday I was tempted to eat some chocolate (REALLY tempted) but I knew it would put me over on calories and I really want those earrings! LOL. So I was a good girl and avoided it. And I've been able to keep my stress in check and do some real writing (though, I forgot yesterday that I had set a time goal for myself, so I'll be sure to start doing that today).

As for my walk, ...

Mini-Goal

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 19:09:25 EST

Well, good ol' Lynn is right as always. I have been too hard on myself, and I need to make sure I'm tracking everything I eat. I went back and tracked my food as best I could remember, and I feel better having done that. I also think I need to protect myself from the kind of stress I've been feeling this last week. I have no one to blame but myself. It's helped me to get some distance from this issue today, and see what I need to do differently in the coming week. It really isn't like ...

Doing better?

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 18:20:03 EST

Am I? I don't know. My weight is hovering between 143 and 144. I've been doing okay on food during the day, but several evening activities keep throwing me off. Wednesday I went out with friends to California Pizza Kitchen, and while I did order a Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad (long one of my standby favorite meals to order at a restaurant, even before SP) I also had some of the appetizer. It was spinach dip with chips. WAY good. Does that count as a veggie? Of course, I can't find nut...

Holy Gorge Batman!

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 00:41:08 EST

Have I mentioned that I'm having a hard time really getting back into the swing of things since Christmas? If I'd had any idea what that was going to do to me mentally, I think I would have handled the holidays differently. I've spent the entire month of January trying to get excited about exercise again. I'm also trying to overcome this sudden mental preoccupation with food. Pre-SP, this is what it used to be like for me all the time: thinking about food even if I wasn't hungry. Eating...

80's Dude

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 11:22:25 EST

“This is me rockin’ in the new year to the 80s in honor of my 80s Music Lovers teammates during Week 3 of January!!"

Shockingly, this is the only pic I have of myself with big 80's hair, and since it was at one of my many slumber parties and no doubt late at night, it had fallen a bit. I'm still looking for a pic with the big bangs. You remember those? Four inches long and sticking straight up. Yes, we were divas of fashion back then!

The next day

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 22:59:08 EST

I'm doing pretty awesome today. I started by going on my walk, which I ended up cutting short due to inappropriate attire for the sudden extreme cold we're having. Around here that means 40 degrees. When your exercise pants are really capris that stop below the knee, that means your normal walk of 5 laps is reduced to one so the skin on your calves don't freeze off. Yes, I'm a wimp, I'll admit it. That's why I live in Ar-i-zo-na! So I got to feel good about myself for getting in at leas...

Every victory counts

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 22:07:25 EST

I had a pretty rough week last week for various reasons, one of them being I didn't work out as much as I normally do. I also ate more than normal on a couple of days. There were other things going on, but that's the stuff that relates to SP I guess. This week I seem to be doing better, but today I had a rough afternoon and by the time dinner came around I ended up putting too much food on my plate. I haven't been real emotional about eating in months, so I'm not sure what's bringing this...

Get a load of that car!!!

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 13:13:07 EST

"This is me rockin’ in the new year to the 80s in honor of my 80s Music Lovers teammates during Week 2 of January!!"

Lynn made me say that, LOL! I'd hardly call this rockin, but I had to post this pic anyway. This is my and my best friend Tammy on one of our many camping trips in northern AZ, and this is the car my mom drove. E-gads!!

Sorry this blog is short, but I must run. Oh! But I did reach the fifth milepost on my virtual walk today. I'm in beautiful M...

Accomplishments of 2007

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 00:04:12 EST

This entry is inspired by my 80's Music Lovers Team and our awesome leader Lynn. So here's my accomplishments and thank you's. 2007 was a big year for me so I'm not limiting it to healthy stuff, but since this is SP, I'll start there. :)

Accomplishments:

1. I lost an amazing 20 pounds. And it was all sort of on accident. I had come to accept the fact that I was overweight and let myself believe that I was okay with it. It wasn't until I stumbled onto SP and starte...

The 80's were, like, so totally awesome man!

Sat, 5 Jan 2008 12:36:45 EST

"This is me rockin’ in the new year to the 80s in honor of my 80s Music Lovers teammates during Week 1 of January!!"

Apparently, the way to get me to post pics of myself is to offer me points for it. I'm starting to feel like a points w*ore, LOL. Today I pulled out the old photo albums and had so much fun looking through them. I scanned a nice little handful for my 80's team. More to come next week! Anyway, this one was at a slumber party, and my friends and I were having fu...

I rock dude

Fri, 4 Jan 2008 15:30:38 EST

Can I just say that I rock? Yesterday I made my anal-retentive goal tracking chart and I was able to check off everything I was supposed to do yesterday. It was awesome! And I'm on track for today too. It's helping me remember what my most important goals are and how I've decided to achieve them. I love it. I also told my husband about it, even though I felt kinda nervous about doing that at first. That's increased my feeling of accountabililty and given me the sense that I'm going to ...

Resolutions... at last!!!!

Wed, 2 Jan 2008 20:07:07 EST

Okay, yesterday I said I'd clean out the junk in my house, and post my resolutions. I did the first, and let me tell you, throwing out the M&Ms was HARD. I really, really, really just wanted to eat them. But I'm glad I didn't and I feel better just having the food in my house be normal again. So yay! (The above picture, by the way, is to remind myself that I love feeling healthy and being thinner more than I love chocolate! These are my new clothes from Kohl's!)

As for...

Oh for pete's sake

Wed, 2 Jan 2008 13:37:40 EST

Well, I had my resolution blog half written and pushed some weird button and deleted the whole thing. I have no idea what I did. But my kids are hungry and I promised them a picnic at the park today so I'll have to do this later.

I mean, THIS is the last hurrah... I think...

Wed, 2 Jan 2008 01:43:57 EST

New Year's Eve we had all kinds of junk food and I didn't care cuz I figured, one last hurrah before I got back on track, right? Then today the left over potato chips were calling to me. And calling. Why didn't I ignore them? I don't even want to know how many I swiped out of that bowl over the course of the afternoon. And I only had 4 glasses of water today. E-gads. I did walk, which was good, but I'm a little concerned about my mental attitude about food right now. I keep thinking a...

How I did over the holidays

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 22:14:04 EST

This is my sweet little neice, currently living in Japan where her daddy (my brother-in-law) is stationed as a marine. She's the first girl in the family and we LOVE it when they send us pictures of her. She's on the quilt I made for her. :)

Anyway, the holidays. Back on Nov 1st I decided to cut my SP time down to the bare bones because this time of year is so hectic. My goal was simply not to gain any weight between then and Jan. 1. Since I've gained weight every Christmas i...

Praise those squats!

Sat, 15 Dec 2007 20:57:37 EST

Gee, I've been such a slacker as far as the blog goes. Anyway, just a short one this time. Today I walked, unusual for a Saturday but something I'm trying to get in the habit of doing. I also went further - 4.5 miles instead of 3.5 miles. Woo hoo! Here's where the squats come in. I had to use the bathroom there at the park and of course it's not the cleanest and there's no soap. I didn't want to touch anything, least of all the seat. Luckily my thigh muscles are getting toned from all...