Sunday, January 2, 2011

New Blog

Jay and I started a new blog about our lives.

www.laurawarrington.blogspot.com

JLJ

Monday, November 1, 2010

Monday - What did we eat?

I hope that all of you have been journaling what you are eating. Jay and I were very strict about this during the summer and have found ourselves to be a bit more relaxed since school started. So I committed myself this week to journal everything I eat. Starting out today, I have not done so well. It is Jay’s birthday so I am going to use that as “MY” excuse.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Breakfast
1 toasted slice of Oroweat Health Full 10 grain bread / 80 cals.
½ Tbsp. Smucker’s squeeze strawberry fruit spread / 25 cals.
1 egg / 70 cals.
¼ cup egg beater / 30 cals.
TOTAL Calories for breakfast: 205
(I did pretty good at breakfast.)

Lunch
school salad (lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes) / free cals. – These really are not free; I am just choosing not to count them.
2 Tbsp. Kraft fat free ranch dressing / 50 cals.
½ serving lunch meat turkey and ham / 40 cals.
1 serving croutons / 15 cals.
1 small apple / 50 cals.
2 oz. caramel apple dipping sauce / 210 cals. (Now what was I thinking here??)
TOTAL Calories for lunch: 365

Snack
5 miniature Hershey candies / 210 cals. (Okay, so I had 3 today and I was sitting here entering in the calories and you can have 5 candies for one serving – so I thought why not, I can eat two more.) DO NOT FOLLOW MY EXAMPLE HERE!!! This was not a good decision.

Dinner
So this is where Jay’s birthday came into play. He wanted to go to Izzy’s. I actually did not do that bad. Once you have changed some “habits” you don’t really want to start them back up again. I do not know how many calories I ate at Izzy’s, but here is what I ate. 2 small pieces of thin crust pesto pizza, salad with fat free dressing, grilled veggies, and two bread sticks. / est. 600 cals.

Beverage
Too much diet Pepsi, but no calories.

TOTAL for the Day: 1380
Okay, please know that this is not enough calories for me to be eating. I am supposed to eat around 1800 calories a day. Tomorrow will be a better day.

Now a word from Jay
Happy birthday to me!!! I am starting my journaling tomorrow.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

We're Back!!!

It has been a long time since Jay or I have posted and we have found that we are missing it. We had put it on hold for awhile to deal with our crazy lives, but we have learned that life is not going to slow down. With that said, we felt it was time to start posting again.

Our goal is to help others create a healthy life style that works for them and their families. We are going to share different things that have worked for us and the ones that haven’t. The ups and downs of weight loss and a life style change. I am hoping somewhere in between we can have a little fun.

We are still working everyday to reach our weight loss goals, but we have chosen to slow down a bit and live life. Since we started this journey in June, we have lost 105 pounds between the two of us. Just thinking about those 105 pounds makes me sweat. Yes, most of that weight was Jay, but just for my peace of mind, he had twice as must to lose as me.

Here are my tips for the day.

The number one thing to know about losing weight is actually very simple. You MUST make a deficit in the amount of calories you consume verse the amount of calories you burn. The goal is to burn more calories than you are consuming. The bigger the deficit, the more weight you will lose. There are three different ways to achieve this. First, decrease the amount of calories you are consuming. Second, increase the amount of calories you are burning, and last do both.
This sounds much easier then it is. In America we consume an average of 3,330 calories per day. We only need 1,800 to 2,500 depending on your gender, body type and activity level. Just take one day or a week and journal everything that you eat and drink. This will help you to see how much you are really eating. Sometimes we are in the dark. Good luck and feel free to post your results.

Now a word from Jay.

If life gives you Melons, you may be dyslexic.

JLJW

Sunday, September 5, 2010

where has the summer gone

Hello to all my loyal readers. Again I have strayed from posting blogs, for that I am truly sorry. But here it is two days until school starts and I feel like a chicken running around with its head cut off. I have much to do. My room is half setup, my lesson plans; well there are plans to do those.

Football is in full swing and my mind is racing, do I run a 3-3 or a 4-2 to try and stop Sherman County’s 200lb running back and their mobile quarterback. Then next week we have Lowell who has another big back and a mobile quarterback. Great we start the season off facing two of the top 5 teams in state. Hang on boys, football season is about to hit you like a freight train with numbers 44 and 51 on its chest.

The weight loss journey is still happening amongst all the other things. Today I weighed in at 375lbs which puts the total weight loss at 55lbs since the begging of June. Not bad for a summer. Now to keep it up during school. My goal is to be down 130 by next June. We shall see how that pans out during the winter, typically the hardest time to lose weight. OK well school work is staring me in the face and I need to get it done. Bye Bye

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

The casualties of a lifestyle change

When we began this journey back in May; Laura and I knew there was going to be some loss. We knew that we would have to stop eating the “good food” and start eating “good for you food”. We expected to stop seeing servers at the restaurants, or the drive-thru window attendants at the local McDonalds. We fully expected to lose our minds. After all we had been living unhealthy for many years. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy. What we didn’t know? What we didn’t expect; the feelings that would come along with those losses and the fall-out because of our lifestyle change. It’s not like losing a football game and being able to go back and dissect film to see what went wrong and correct those things to prepare for the next game. This is life. This is permanent stuff, you don’t get a mulligan.
We weren’t prepared for the feelings that rush into our minds when we drive in to Portland or Salem. The feeling of instantly being hungry and therefore trying to find a place to stop and eat, even though we just had breakfast and hour prior. Those feelings of comfort that flood the brain when you step foot into your parents house and you instantly relate all those feelings to the food mom used to make. The thoughts of, “hey look the news is on, it must be dinner time”. We realized that most of these feelings or thoughts were merely habits that had to be broken. We had taught ourselves to eat out every time we went somewhere. We realized that just stepping out of the comfort and protection of our home was risky; like going grocery shopping. Laura has to take a list of exactly what we need and we both have to help each other stick to the list. If either one of us goes alone, it’s almost a guarantee we will come home with something we don’t need. At home, we know the junk isn’t there, there isn’t food that we could try to convince ourselves “it’s just a bite”, or, “I can work that bite off, I’ll have 2 or 3 more”. We realized this is our journey, and we could not expect others to adhere to our strict diets. It is way more difficult to stop yourself from taking a cookie at mom’s house than you realize, or trying to eat dinner away from home.
What it truly boils down to is one thing; we had to stop being selfless and start being selfish. It had to become all about ourselves. For the past 20 years I personally would have done anything for everyone else, or anyone that asked, and had done nothing for myself. Yeah I accomplished a few major things along that way but did I really do them for myself? And even in the early days of this summer I was doing things for others and not for myself. I was consumed with trying to make challenges work so others could be involved, but the real reason was to help myself, not others. Now having said all this, I realize that I can still be helpful to others. I can still be there to help when someone needs it. I can still balance life, but it’s in a new way. And with everything new, it takes adjustments. So to those that maybe have been feeling left out, or feeling like we have abandon them, hold strong. We are still here, just getting smaller, smarter, and a little more selfish. But you have to ask yourself, are the results worth it? HECK YES they are.