I have been sitting here for the last few minutes just staring at this screen, wondering how to summarize all the excitement and changes and ideas I have for 2012. I've come to the conclusion that if I were to attempt to do this all in one big blog update that it would be a million pages long and no one would read it. (Not that any of you actually read through all this crap anyway) So I am going to do this in "parts".
Since I haven't posted in over a month I'll just sum up the holidays for now and say they were great. Bill came home from Japan for a couple weeks, we had the family over for Christmas Eve and had quite the slumber party, waking up Christmas morning and enjoying it with Bill, the kids, my parents, my sis & hubbie, and my grandmother. Christmas should always be like that :)
I finished up my AA in teaching in December too. Because of all the stress and exhaustion and flat out almost losing my mind I am taking a couple semesters off. This is the first time that I can remember where I don't have work or school and can focus on myself and my family and I am LOVING IT!!!
So, my Part 1 update has to do with what I am planning to do with all of this "free" time. I say this in quotations because I do still have a toddler to chase, and a house and kids to take care of while hubbie is away in Japan. My main goal is to take advantage of this time and focus on my health and fitness, and the overall improvement of the way I feed myself and the kids. Moderation isn't a word I use very often, but I'm working on finding a good balance between the right foods and making the fun foods a special treat instead of an every day thing around here.
I'm actually starting to properly use an app I've had on my iPhone for quite some time now. It's myfitnesspal and it is a free app for iPhone, iPad, and online as well. It makes tracking your goals and the foods you eat incredibly simple. Now that I have an iPad 2 (thanks Bill!) I downloaded the app for it and it's my favorite! However using it with my iPhone is the best because you can use your iPhone a little easier to scan your foods. But I'm getting ahead of myself here...
With this app you can hop online and set your weight loss goal. Then using any of the versions you can easily track your foods during the day. There is even a scanner on your phone or iPad you can use so when I make a salad I can just scan the salad, my dressing, and whatever else I use, select the correct serving size, and it enters all the nutritional value for me. It keeps track of everything all day long and provides a summary so you can track your carbs, sodium, etc and see what you need more, or less of as you go through your day. The iPad app does everything the iPhone does and offers even MORE features like a pretty little pie chart that shows you how your nutrition is tracking for the day.
My absolute favorite thing is that you can add your friends and see how they're doing and cheer them on as they complete their diary each day, drop weight, or just give them a "good job!" when they burn off a ton of calories at the gym. Oh, and when you DO exercise those calories you burn off go back into your ticker for the day and can be used for even more snacking, or maybe even a glass of wine at the end of the night. I'll let you check out the rest for yourself, but for a free app it's amazing and definitely a valuable tool. If you use it or plan to add me as a friend: Jaxboxchick
Ok, now that I've got my food tracking I had to address the whole exercise thing. My original thought was that I would get a gym membership that provides child care. I'm still planning to do this later this month. I think it would give me a nice break each day from Hailey (especially since I have NO babysitter close by) and get us both out of the house. For now, we've been taking walks up to the big park in our neighborhood which is a good 2.25-2.75 mile walk depending on which way we go. I push Hailey in the stroller and the kids take their bikes or skates. We've also been doing some Dance Central battles in the house.
The other day I noticed a great post on The Married Gamers about a Dance Central Challenge that Kelly Brown is participating in. Check out the link for all the details. Basically Dance Central is busting out some fitness challenges every week. I came in a little late to the game this week, so in order to get my 3x in by Friday I started last night and need to do the challenge three days in a row. This week you're supposed to do 10 songs in a row by a certain choreographer.
I did this last night on EASY and almost died. My wonderful son hopped in for the last four songs to help encourage me and keep me going and we really had fun doing the challenge. My body is screaming at me today, but I plan to stick with it and try to do all the challenges this year. You can find these challenges each week at DanceCentral.com. Let me know if you're participating and we can cheer each other on.
I think this is good enough for now...lol. Look for more in the next couple weeks from me, I've got a lot more to say...as always...
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