Our Healthy Halloween Fun!

So, remember how it was just last week that D and I had the honest & frank conversation about how I needed him to support me in regards to healthy eating? 

Well, apparently old dogs can learn new tricks because when I got home from work last Wednesday, I arrived to find that he had planned & prepared a mini-Halloween party for the two of us that was composed of all HEALTHY Halloween treats! 

I mean, besides the fact that he's also Captain America, I'm pretty sure I have the greatest husband ever :) 

He started off our healthy Halloween dinner with these: 

Monster mouth caramel apples! (The teeth are made from sliced almonds!) 

Followed by the main course: 

Mummified Flatbread Pizza & Brussel Sprouts (btw- it's official, brussel sprouts are not for me and I promise it's not how they were prepared- I didn't hate them but the fact is they just have too much of a vegetable taste for me- bleck!)

And finally, dessert!

Frozen "carved" clementine shell filled with frozen greek yogurt and reduced sugar/fat chocolate sauce! 

I've gotta say, for not knowing all that much about healthy eating (except for what I've taught him) and not really caring about what he eats for himself at all, I was super duper impressed with his take on a healthy Halloween dinner but more importantly that he obviously had taken to heart our conversation the week before. I'm a blessed girl. 

Weigh In: 

• Previous Weigh In: 176lbs
• This Weeks Weigh In: 172lbs 
• Result: Loss of 4lbs! 

My goal this week is to continue to lose another 2lbs per week and I'll be glad to take more than that a week as I know I have some tough weeks ahead (the Holidays but we are also traveling to Spain in two weeks) but nothing is going to stop me from reaching my goal of 160lbs by Christmas! 

Question: Anyone have any good Holiday eating survival strategies to share? 

Losing Weight & Not Your Significant Other

Losing weight is hard- period. And for me, losing weight became harder when I moved from singledom to having a boyfriend (my now hubby!). Why you ask? Because D loves him some food. Like... a lot. Don't believe me? 

I have proof: 

 I told you. 

Earlier today a bloggy friend wrote me expressing that she was now having trouble continuing to lose weight now that she is in a relationship and as I wrote her back from my experience and with some advice I thought that surely this could be helpful to others because the truth is that it's a lot easier to deny yourself and go into 100% hardcore weight loss mode when you are single and your choices are directly effecting someone else. 

Let me preface this by saying that I've done nothing but lose weight since D & I started dating 11 months ago but it has not been without struggle. I found that when we would go on dates that I felt like turning down the opportunity to feed each other ice cream and bake cookies together just didn't seem fair- I felt like I was missing out on some essential dating right of passage or something. And because I was far from my heaviest at the time, it was easy to slack a little here and there. For a few months during our dating relationship, I found myself quite comfortable in maintenance mode. The problem with that is that I wasn't at a weight I wanted to maintain- I still had more to lose and I needed to stop living, thinking & eating as if I had already reached my goal. 

It's hard to tell the person you love who just wants to do nice things for you and have fun adventures (that include food) that you just can't or that they are going to have to rethink their plans in order to accommodate your healthy living choices. It's hard, but not impossible. 

For example, the other night D lovingly texted me that he was going to pick up dinner for us on his way home from work (so sweet!); however, although I made sure to ask that he get me something healthy (which was hard enough) he decided to come home with BBQ ribs, pulled pork, mashed potatoes & garlic bread...REALLY!!?!?! 

After dinner he could tell that I was kind of quiet and when he asked what was up we had a very honest conversation where I explained that when I eat something that is unhealthy, it's not the same as it is for him where he just thinks, "Yea, that wasn't very healthy or nutritious, oh well, it was delicious and so worth it!" I explained that for me, when I eat things like that it's more than just a feeling of guilt that I feel, it's a feeling of defeat. I feel defeated because I know that I'm not making decisions that are going to lead me where I want to go. I think that helped everything click for him because, I believe, that if someone truly loves you, they aren't going to want to contribute to you living in defeat, but victory. And he followed up  by asking what he could do to help me reach my goal; see if you're like me you'd think..."uh, not wouldn't not bringing home BBQ be an obvious answer?" but to the mind of the person who has never been overweight or had 100+lbs to lose, they don't realize that it's not just a cheat meal, it can lead to a cheat meal marathon month. 

So here's the advice that I gave my bloggy friend & that I'm currently living out myself. When it comes to enjoying your relationship/marriage and still reaching your weight loss goals, I suggest: 

• Having a frank and honest conversation with your significant other; share your story of how you became overweight, what your goals are & how they can help you reach them. 
• Find ways to incorporate and enjoy food with them- it doesn't have to be all carrot sticks and protein shakes; make a healthy dessert together or research a new restaurant to go to and check the menu before you go for the healthiest option. 
• At the end of the day, we all have to come to the realization that the only person who is going to make the tough decisions of saying no to food temptation and yes to the gym is us- it's not our significant others. If we are waiting on them to suddenly change their eating patterns or plan our meals for us, we're gonna find ourselves 5 years older, 25lbs heavier and regretting letting ourselves go. 

Losing weight and being married/in a relationship is  possible. It will take sacrifice, planning & hard work, but hey, doesn't anything that's worth something? 

I'm BAAAAAAAAACK as a Mrs!

Why, hello there :)

After taking a post-wedding blogging haiatus, I am so glad to be getting back into the groove of things.

While we've only been married for almost 2 months, it already kinda feels like a lifetime away- did anyone else experience that?

Here are the quick wedding details:

• I married the love of my life early last month- he is the most kind, loving, integrit person I have ever met and I am blessed to be able to live life with him. We met almost 3 years ago, began dating 11 months ago & have been loving every moment of our almost 2 month old marriage! 

(This is the only professional picture we've received back thus far, I'll be sure to post a few more once we get them!)  And yes, I know you can see my bra... :/

• D (that's the hubby fyi), being the amazing man that he is, planned our entire honeymoon on his own and didn't tell me where we were going until the day of the wedding! While I'm still kind of surprised my anal-retentive control freak self let him plan the whole thing without even telling me one detail, I'm glad I did because he did an incredible job. Where'd we go? BOSTON!

Because we are going to be doing a lot of traveling in November (Spain) and December (Arizona to see my fam) we wanted to do a more low key honeymoon so Boston was perfect! I found it to have quite a few similarities architecturally to the 'Burgh but with a way cooler feel. It was laid back yet outdoorsy which is totally us without being crunchy (my word for hippie meets yuppy). The picture above was while we did Boston's Freedom Trail and we spent the rest of our time exploring the various neat little neighborhoods and Boston. All in all, it was a delightful time :)

Weight Loss Journey Progress:

As of Monday I am weighing in at 176lbs, which means a couple things:

1. I have surpassed my original long term goal of weighing 180lbs!!!
2. I have officially lost as much weight as I currently weigh!!! I've lost a whole me- that's craziness, folks. So for those not good at math (tee hee), I've lost a grand total of 176lbs!!!
3. It is past-time for my next round of progress pics (I'll post them next week).
4. Finally, this means that I am 16lbs away from my new final goal of 160lbs.

I  have been on this journey for almost 3 years and while it has been one of the most rewarding and challenging of my life, I am reading for this chapter to come to a close and the chapter of maintenance to begin. In an ideal world I'd like to lose these 16lbs by the time I fly home for Christmas and begin 2013 at my goal weight of 160lbs (this would average a 2lb loss per week) and while I can't guarantee I'll meet that goal (because of factors beyond my control (read: whether my body decides to give up the weight or not), not because of factors I can control (read: inhaling Christmas cookies), I'm going to give everything I have to finish this journey as strong as I deserve to- which is pretty darn strong.

Signing off for this week~I hope all is well with all my old and new bloggy friends out there. It's good to be back :)

A Pre-Wedding Wake Up Call

Well helllooooo!

The past few months have been amongs the busiest of my life- I guess that's to be expected as I've been organizing to move, planning my wedding, preparing our new house to be moved into, had a major change in my position at work, have had some significant health problems and trying to maintain all the other necessities of life. I'm not going to blabber on but I'll just keep it short- life has been a bit overwhelming at times but thank goodness, there is a light at the end of the tunnel because...my wedding is only 15 days away!!! Whew am I excited- I'm ready to be done with the planning, the tasks, the $ spending and ready to just be married to this amazing man:

Let me be honest, it has been very hard to continue losing weight over these past couple months. I am currently weighing in at 186lbs (a total loss of 166lbs) and while I know that may seem impressive, I've been messing around with these 6 pounds for almost two months now, and not because the scale just won't budge, but because I've slipped into mediocrity.

You probably won't hear this from many bloggers but I'm going to be very honest. It was much easier for me to continue pushing myself to food prep like a mad woman, say no to greasy food & desserts and workout 5x's per week when I was single & was horrified by my weight. I was able to put all of my focus on losing weight and getting healthy & now my attention is split 10 different ways and healthy living has had to take somewhat of a back seat.

We will all go through busier/crazier seasons in life when we literally CANNOT get to the gym or food prep the way that we would like but it's important that we are honest with ourselves enough to say that being busy or not having the time to work out doesn't give us license to eat a blizzard or stuff our face with chips and salsa.

For the first time in my almost 3 year journey, I found myself over the last 4 months or so making excuses and just put simply- not giving my best. I'm okay with the fact that weight loss and health isn't in my top 3 of priorities anymore as some really amazing things have come into my life that now take a higher priority, but that doesn't mean that I should be okay with living below what I deserve.

Yesterday was somewhat of a wake up call for me. I finally accepted that if I continue to live the way I'm living that I'm going to end up gaining weight back and I WILL NOT ALLOW that to happen. Mark. my. words. I deserve more. I can do better because I ALREADY HAVE done it. 

I'm finished with the excuses, I'm finished with the complacency & I'm finished not moving toward greatness. 

My goal is to weigh no more than 180lbs on my wedding day & I'm gonna give my all to get there. It's not where I want to be but it's not where I am either. 

Next week I've already made a plan and shopping list to get myself away from the sodium filled/processed/carby foods I've been eating and introducing veggies & fruits back into my life. I'm sure there will be some sodium withdrawls but oh, well- I'm moving on and moving forward. 

To leave you on a lighter note; here's a pic of my and my bridesmaids (minus 1) at my wedding shower in June :) 

Enough about me. How are y'all doing??? Looking forward to checking out your blogs today- it's been too long!

Summer = Salad Time!

Despite my not so great picture taking skills, I promise you I've been enjoying this delicious salad all week long- yum! When the weather gets warmer (not that it's really all that warm yet here in Pittsburgh- it was 39 degrees this morning at the bus stop! grrr) salad becomes my go-to meal. This is one of my favorite salad concauctions & includes:

• Romain & Spring Mix
• Strawberries
• Aged parmesan & asiago cheese (from Trader Joe's)
• Caesar flavored almonds
• Raspberr Gorgonzola Dress (from Trader Joe's aka TJ's)
• Grilled Chicken Strips (TJ's) 

= 299 Calories!

I intend to maintain having salads for at least one of my meals each day up through the wedding, next week's salad creation will be something I've never tried before- a mediterranean type salad, I'll be sure to share my recipe & how it turns out next week.

Weigh In:

May Goal: Be at 190lbs by May 31st
Last Week's Weigh In: 195lbs
This Week's Weigh In: 191lbs (-4lbs!!!)
A Total Weightloss of: 161lbs!

I attribute this great loss to being meticulous about what I've been eating; I've been tracking daily using myfitnesspal & have been staying at or under a net of 1300 calories daily. I have had zero time to work out lately and when that happens I know that I've got to pay even that much more attention to my nutrition.

Now I'm a Believer:

I had always heard that if you aren't eating enough calories that you won't lose weight. I never really thought there was much validity to that but I now officially believe that to be true. Earlier this month I was working out like a fiend & eating around 1200 calories a day and wasn't seeing the scale budge at all, if anything it was going up and I just didn't understand what was going on- it was discouraging. What I wasn't paying attention to was that if I'm only eating 1200 calories a day and then burning 600 calories working out each day that I'm really only netting 600 which simply isn't enough to keep my body happy, functioning & continuing to give up the excess pounds. I was shooting myself in the foot basically.

In the last week or so I have upped my calorie intake on the days that I'm working out and kept it low on the days I'm not and so far it seems to be working great- only 1lb away from achieving my goal for the month of May! Whoo hoo!

This weekend I'm in the wedding of two of my best friends and I am so excited- I'll be sure to share pics & stuff next week!

Until then, let's keep doing the "impossible!"

New Blog Additions!

I figured after 2+ years & 150ish pounds that it was finally time for a blog facelift, hence the new look!

I decided to add the new pages above because it's what I think it most important. I realize that not everyone who is currently reading this blog has been reading since the beginning so chances are you may have missed some stuff. So for anyone interested in reading more about where I've come from, how I am doing it & where I'm headed- check. it. out!

I spent the last week in NYC for work with D (aka: the love of my life :) It was my first time in the city & it truly was a B.L.A.S.T.

Not sure where this Sunday's weekly weigh in will have me at but regardless of what it says, I'm keeping my chin up & a smile on my face because life is simply too short & God is too good to do anything else.



He Must Have Liked it Because...

So after typing & re-typing a million different semi-clever ways to say it, I figured it would be best to just come out and fill you all in on a rather major occurence that happened a bit ago...

I'm Getting Married!!!

I met "D" almost 2 years ago now and for almost that entire time we were just friends and would chat occasionally when we bumped into each other at church; however, a while back we were a part of a group that traveled to Israel together & shortly thereafter we began dating. He's an absolutely AMAZING man & I love him to pieces. He propoed this past St. Patricks Day and the wedding is happening this September (only 4 months to go- yikes!). So as you can imagine I've been super busy with planning a wedding and still juggling all of life's other responsibilities. But, needless to say, I'm one happy & very blessed girl!

Now onto weightloss talk!

Currently, I'm at 195lbs (ish- the scale was a little wacko today but I'm sure some of the things that was causing it to be that way will be gone for my "real" weigh in on Sunday). My goal for the wedding is to be 175lbs so a loss of 20lbs in 4 months (or 5lbs a month).

A year ago I would have looked at this goal and thought, "Really, Tiffany!?! Only 20lbs in 4 months?? You can do so much better than that!." But what I've learned is that the reality is that I'm not where I was a year ago, it has proven to be a bit more of a challenge for me to see steady weight loss these days so losing 5lbs a month consistantly is a doable but still very challenging goal at this stage in the game.

Another great thing that the wedding has brought on is that I feel like it brought back the old fighter in me that got me to where I am today; truthfully, I've felt that for the past 6 months or so that I've just been a tamed version of myself and that I just couldn't seem to flip that switch in my mind again that allows me really give this my all. But thankfully, that switch has finally been flipped thanks to the wedding and I'm working my bum off because truthfully, I'm just ready to be at my goal weight (for now) of 175lbs and I'm gonna do whatever it takes to get there.

Ta- Ta for Now!