Here`s to You Cupcake....

Well, another day down, another day closer to our end goal. Today was a day that was filled with pain and remembering for me so I didn't do much. In fact I lied on the couch for most of the day and basically did nothing. I also am going to eat a cupcake tonight from Cake in a Cup as well. Today celebrates my step mom`s 47th birthday and this is the first birthday without her. So, putting all goals aside I decided I wanted to celebrate her today. The cupcake bakery Cake in a Cup is a local thing here in Toledo. The bakery won on cake wars a couple years back. Even though it was literally in her back yard my step mom never went to it until one day she sparked my interest. Thursday soon became our tradition with me bringing at least 2 of the unique cupcake flavors that we both tasted. She really enjoyed Hostess with the Mostess but they did not have that today.  I brought her a peanut butter chocolate cupcake to her place of resting and tonight Mike and I will be having a cupcake in her memory,in a way toasting to her.  I wish she could be here to celebrate but she isn`t. I wish she could be here to see us doing so well with our goals but she isn`t. However, to end this I know she is here and she is smiling because we are honoring her tonight.

So, long story short even though I did nothing today and I am eating a cupcake I did not emotionally eat but I will admit it was so hard not to emotionally eat today. Mike and I have been very busy the past few days. We have wonderful meals planned all the way till Tuesday. However, my 5 year old niece is visiting this weekend so we may have to alter our meal board a little (Most 5 year olds don`t like salad and fish).  So this week on the menu:

Thursday (tonight): Peppered Chicken Marsala with fettuccine noodles(Low calorie amazingly)
Friday: Salad with Crab (may be altered)
Saturday: Chicken Stir Fry
Sunday : Yummy Chicken and Dumplings (Yes, LOW CALORIE!!!!)
Monday: Dilled Pot Roast (again, Low calorie!!!!)
Tuesday: Leftovers or Sushi Night (Our favorite)

Well, before our Thursday shows start I will continue with our yummy dinner tonight. One thing Mike and I love is pasta. We adore pasta (ok mostly me)!!! We haven't had any of it since the new year so finding a chicken marsala recipe that was low in calories was amazing!!

Introducing...Low Calorie Chicken Marsala and Fettuccine

(Recipe available upon request)

It was simply delicious and made you less guilty about eating it!!

Well, I must bid farewell until tomorrow (hopefully).

For now,

Jocelyn

And the Winner Is...Both Of Us! - Week 4

Week 4 results are in! This is going pretty well let me tell ya.  This week we can definitely tell these changes are becoming habit.  We hardly think about what we have to do each week as far as our meals and health are concerned.  We still have the occasional nasty cravings for our former "loves" in food but the longer we stick to it the easier we can just ignore it.  Food is becoming less of a pass time for boredom, comfort for rough days, and becoming more of just a necessity to stay healthy and have fun experimenting with.  It makes a big difference when you expand your horizon on all of the foods out there that are great for you.

Anyways, I digress... Here are the results!!

Jocelyn's Results

Weight Lost: 1.6 lbs

Status: Gettin' sleeker by the moment :)

Michael's Results

Weight Lost: 1.8 lbs

Status: Happy to finally find out 

I have a chin, its peeking out! ;)

And there we have it, the final results for Week 4!  It may start slowing down, but that is good.  I don't want no hanging skin ;)  Stay tuned, later this week we will start posting our dinner menu schedule for the following week just for fun each and every week.  If possible, posting links to the recipes so every one of you can enjoy them too and maybe it can help you out!  I hope Jocelyn and I can be inspiration for others, or at least provide any new found insight to help out while going through this experience.

Check in next week for first month results! Total weigh-in and group pics courtesy of our photographer, Kayla! :) 

Now time to enjoy ourselves a dinner and movie.

Michael OUT!!

Kicking temptation out of the front seat

It`s hard to realize before it is too late that temptation is controlling your life.  I came across this situation the past few days. In my front seat contained a jar full of colorful m&m`s and mouth watering Hershey kisses. To state the truth I really don`t even like m&m`s or Hershey kisses all that much. However, since they sat right there in my front seat I liked them that day. That day they seemed to be my friend, they were there for comfort, I mean after all they were in the front seat. After I kept picking m&m`s up one by one out of the jar I realized I was just giving in to temptation. I came to the conclusion that enough was enough and I had to do something about this instead of just eat and eat. So, I threw the candy out but kept the jar because it was Andrea`s, my moms and it was a piece of her. That;s right, I kicked TEMPTATION out of my front seat.

I haven`t posted since the results were given on Tuesday but I will admit I was shocked and quite happy I lost more weight. There is a part of me that believes I will succeed this time and than there is that doubtful part of me that thinks it will be the same results as the last thousand times. I look in the mirror and I see no results, in fact I swear I just keep getting bigger. Even though people tell me I look like I am losing weight and the scale says I am, I feel like I am not. I would like to call this "Fat girl Syndrome". I know the scale does not lie to me, but I still feel the same as I did before. I have spoke to other women who have lost weight and I think this is common especially in the beginning. I know as time goes on I will feel better about this whole thing and alot more confident.

Mike and I have more scrumptious meals planned for the week. We have been trying to be a little more creative with our meals by trying ways to make meals stretch and also finding more affordable alternatives. I will admit that we are spending more on groceries than ever before however, we are spending no money on eating out which added up to a lot more than we are spending now. We have found buying our own salad ingredients and chopping them up ourselves is a lot more affordable than buying the already prepared salad. On a positive note, by buying our own salad ingredients it is also a lot more nutritious. Eggs are a necessary staple in our household because not only are they very inexpensive, Mike loves them a lot. I love to have avocado in my salads and although they aren't the most affordable vegetable if you only use half an avocado it can provide two meals plus a lot of good benefits. Lemons, garlic, carrots, and brown rice are also staples in our home and also inexpensive and beneficial from the nutritional aspect. I am going to be researching some inexpensive healthy choices and meal ideas over the next couple of days in order to put on our menu next week, so stay tuned!

Well...here is a picture of our delicious meal last night....

Seasoned Talapia

with Broccoli

AND our tasty dinner tonight!

Garlic Herb Chicken

with Parmesan Crusted Asparagus

This has been incredibly exciting experiencing all these new tastes and recipes.  I am especially enjoying experimenting in the kitchen.  Check tomorrow to hear about our Pepsi pot roast!  This should be interesting.  I bet it at least sounds intriguing.

For Now, Good Night, I'm Out Scout!

Jocelyn

Third Times the Charm! Week 3!

Jocelyn's Results

Weight Lost: 3.4 lbs

Status: You Betcha!

Michael's Results

Weight Lost: 7.4 lbs

Status: Utterly Ecstatic!

Woohoo!!! Going strong.  That's right, its already been 3 weeks!  Excited for the start of the fourth.  Just a quick post tonight.  We are going to celebrate and watch a movie and enjoy a little treat, sushi!  Sushi Tuesday as one might call it :)  I hope everyone is having a great week!

Michael OUT

Expeditious Update

Just a quick one today folks :) Just finished a tasty dinner that I prepared.  Sorry we forgot to take a picture, it smelled so good!  Though some might not be fans.  It was a Cajun chicken over brown rice and a side of steamed broccoli.  The meal had quite a kick to it, and the chicken had some great spice to it.  My mouth has been burning all day.  Cayenne pepper on my hard boiled egg, cayenne and hot buffalo sauce on my salad, cayenne and black pepper on my cottage cheese, tons of spices on the chicken.  Don't know if it can take much more! :)

Moving along...I notice the more spice (and kick) added to a dish, the less I am inclined to eat.  Also the longer I go without crazy restaurant portion sizes, and going for seconds and thirds, the less I even feel like grabbing anything more than the first portion.  Coca Cola cravings are almost non existent.  The Coca Cola withdrawal symptoms are pretty much eviscerated.  Now I just need to kill the once in a blue moon fast food craving.  That shouldn't be too difficult.  Its been pretty helpful having my uncanny ability to completely blank my mind when I start thinking about fast food :)

Some random thoughts today.  Check in tomorrow night for Week 3 weigh-in results!!  I am feelin' pretty good! What does everyone think the results will be this time??  Stay tuned, same batty blogger, same batty blog. ;)

Michael OUT!

For the Future

Just a measly two days until weigh in #3!  I am looking forward to it with baited breath like I always am.  I always hope for at least staying the same weight, but pray for continued loss of weight!  Tune in Tuesday for Week 3 Results.  Anywho...

The past couple weeks we have been planning out the following week's meals on Sundays for our next full week Wednesday through Tuesday.  This has been a tremendous help! Also, just builds up my anticipation for the following week's meals and by the time I get to them I am crazy anxious to get a taste!  Let me tell you we have an exciting week of meals planned.  Though, keep your pants on, you will have to wait for pics and descriptions of the meals till next week.

Since I have kept a steady weight loss trend, I want to incorporate a workout regimen to keep this up and keep my body energized.  This way I might avoid a plateau.  But if I hit one, it definitely will not kill my motivation.  I am pretty excited these days about keeping this going.  I have to be honest, those first couple weeks are the most difficult but when you stick with it, it absolutely starts to become routine, or habit.  I am about 9 weeks away from beating my personal best in eating healthy/working out.  The next 9 weeks will be crucial for me to solidify these habits and prove to myself and everyone (including you!) that Jocelyn and I are doing the lifestyle change for real this time.  It has to be done for the betterment of our lives and for a long and sustained healthy future.  Big key to our success, at least in my opinion, is to have a major goal that you are striving for.  Not shorter term goals like losing X amount of weight, being able to run that marathon, being able to bike that mountain trail.  More like, having a healthy happy body so one could have the strength to raise children, and be around a long time for them.  Then tailoring intermediate goals to get you to that end goal to make it fun and give you bits of motivation and sense of accomplishment along the way.  This at least is one thing that keeps me going.  But of course, having Jocelyn staying with it with me and keeping me strong has been absolutely paramount to my continued success, I hope I provide the same for her.

Well I will stop boring everyone with my dribble :) On to more exciting things!

Of course, what you all may or may not have been waiting for!!!  THE FOOD PICS :)

Tuna Melts

with cheese tomato and carrot slices and our new favorite bread thins!

Stuffed Portabella Mushroom

with sauteed asparagus, onions, and mushrooms

Some scrumptious pics courtesy of the photographer, Jocelyn.  Hope this peaks your appetite.  Ohhh, and I can't forget, THANK YOU everyone who has been following us and supporting us throughout.  Without you  this would be much more difficult and a lot less fun! :)

Michael OUT!

O, Where Have You Been All My Life?

Happy Saturday!!!! Let me tell you I really do love Saturdays, but who doesn`t? Actually, let me correct that statement, I love every other Saturday. Today is my day off which meant Mike and I accomplished a lot and talked more about our future goals! We slept in today, which is after all great for our body and goes well with our lifestyle change (That's our story and we are sticking to it ). We skipped breakfast (I know, tssk tssk), but we made up with a delicious lunch, crab salad. Can we say yumm? We did use imitation crab, ( this would be the moment where seafood lovers would groan in disgust ) but it was only 80 calories per serving and a whopping 8 g of protein! We changed our weekly salad dish up a little and added some spinach to it, which I might add is mighty great! Mike and I are constantly on the go so we like to have food that we don`t have to spend a lot of time making. To meet this need we have an already made salad all the time in our refrigerator which we chopped up on our grocery day (now on Tuesday). Each day we choose to have a salad as our dinner we add items such as tuna, hard boiled eggs, chicken, avocado, or in today's case crab. I am sure there are other things that we have not experience with yet. We like to use oil and vinegar as our dressing instead of the high calorie dressing such as ranch. I really love to use Franks Red Hot Sauce or Tabasco sauce. So, in case you are on the go constantly and don`t have much time to cook or maybe you can`t cook this might be a tip you may want to try. It works really well for us and our lifestyle. Also, to save time in the week we chop up all our fruits and veggies we buy on our grocery shopping day and I prepackage my lunches for the week as well.

Today I made a great discovery. Ok I must admit I was so excited I shouted at the television "Where have you been all my life?" In case you don`t know I really love Paula Dean, I truly admire her. I find all of her recipes delicious, yet they are not that great for you to eat especially all the time. I am also inspired by her because she lost a lot of weight when she found out she was diabetic. I know from experience that can take a lot of will power especially when you can cook that good. Anyways, today I discovered a show called "Not My Mama`s Meals" and the chef featured is Bobby, Paula Deans son. His goal on the show is to take all of his mama`s recipes and make them a healthier version in order to meet his lifestyle so he is able to eat them all the time. Today`s show featured a healthier version of Paula Deans fried chicken and also fried green tomatoes. I must confess I was drooling and had a few tears of joy that it will be possible to make Paula Dean recipes and not have all the fat. Plus, I may add Paula loves butter, I mean she adores it. This is where I gained a love (a bit of obsession with butter). I always tell everyone when they praise my recipes to NEVER ask what is in it (I fear they may sue me for putting their health in danger). However, I am now going to become a faithful watcher of "Not My Mama`s Meals" from here on out. If you want to check out this website for some yummy recipes here is where you can go: Not my Mama`s Meals

We definitely took advantage of the nice weather today and took a stroll around the block. It was just too gorgeous to waste and I love the talks Mike and I have together (especially our talk about getting a kitty). We enjoyed an amazing new recipe tonight for dinner, caramelized garlic chicken and garlic sauteed spinach. Let me tell you, I have Michael in love with spinach. I think one thing I failed to realize in life that many people don`t really know is that if you experiment with spices and different ways to cook things especially vegetables it is much more enticing to eat. Take for example spinach, Michael isn't a big fan of it but when I sauteed it in olive oil, added garlic, cayenne pepper, black pepper, lemon pepper and glazed it with sea salt and squirts of lemon he really enjoyed it. One thing Mike and I really are starting to do especially since we eliminated butter out of our diet is experiment with spices. I have so many in my cupboard that I haven`t even used. Spices really do make a difference in the dishes you choose to make. So if you don`t already, try SPICING YOUR LIFE UP A BIT!

Now I would like to share what I know you are all waiting for...pictures of our meals today and also last night (since I am a slacker and fell asleep at 9:30 instead of post)

Mike's Better Than B-Dubs Baked Buffalo Drumsticks

With a side of salad

Caramelized Garlic Chicken

With sauteed garlic spinach

Tomorrow on the menu board will be poached eggs and waffles (a healthier version), tuna veggie melts for lunch and for dinner stuffed portabella mushrooms with a side of steamed carrots (spiced up of course). I will be definitely posting these tomorrow, so stay tuned our loyal followers. Well, its time to finish enjoying this lovely Saturday by watching a movie and drinking a glass of Moscato.

Until next time...

Farewell Followers,

Jocelyn

Sooo Scandalous....

Well, guess I owe our loyal followers an apology due to not being able to provide an epic post yesterday with some scrumptious pictures to make you drool. However, HAVE NO FEAR, here I am, ready to write and ready to share our pictures!!!

I have a lot of catching up to do but I choose not to bore you with long essays tonight...maybe tomorrow.  Plus, Scandal, OUR FAVORITE show will be on shortly. Mike and I love Thursdays night just for this purpose plus its our little splurge because we have wine and popcorn nights just like the main character Olivia does. (Yes, we are that obsessed, as you should be too).

Enough of that....I have been doing pretty good. I have my irrational moments, the ones where I am 2.5 seconds from turning into a McDonalds, or a quick dash away from sprinting into a gas station and getting a pop (ok i lied, i don't sprint, more like waddle).  However, I have not given into terrible temptation yet. I think it helps that Mike and I aren't limiting ourselves completely from our joys and our favorite foods but we are doing EVERYTHING in MODERATION. This MODERATION word is a new thing for me. You see MODERATION for me once upon a time meant a whole pint of ice cream, a carton of cookies, 5 slices of pizza, and everything three times a normal serving. I really did not know what IN MODERATION meant until I started this lifestyle change. I must say it is working out splendidly, I still am losing weight , feeling better and AND getting to eat my favorite things here and there. I think one of the reasons why I failed so many times before was because I told myself NO,NO,NO! to all my favorite things and therefore ended up rebelling which ended in defeat. However, with this new word in my vocabulary I will not have this problem anymore.

Mike and I have been cooking up a storm in the kitchen the last week. Even though we are eating healthier I have gotten to cook more than ever, exploring so many new ways to make things and I just love that. In case you don`t know me, I absolutely love cooking. I don`t just love it because I like to eat (although that is a major pro), I love it because I can be myself in the kitchen, I can get messy, I can make mistakes, I can experiment, and nobody judges me. I am a whole different person in the kitchen (sometimes not an appropriate person for the public, either). So, I must say cooking more and different things is a benefit to this new lifestyle change that I adore. Let me share what we have been eating the past few nights....

Last week, sauteed shrimp and asparagus salad

One of my favorite breakfasts, poached eggs with sliced 

avocado sprinkled with cayenne and black pepper

A scrumptious dinner Mike made, tuna steaks 

with caramelized onions and a small side salad

A complete mouth-watering dinner, chicken 

with mushrooms and sugar snap peas, over a bed of brown rice

Tonight's dinner, Italian Chicken Saute 

(chicken, chopped tomatoes with Italian seasonings, and cannelloni beans)

As you can see Mike and I have really been enjoying ourselves, our taste buds like it too. No depriving here, just some amazing cooking and experimenting going on! If you want any of our recipes let us know...We would love to share! More tomorrow to come...stay tuned.

Scandal awaits us!

For now,

Jocelyn

Another One Bites the Dust...Week 2!

ARE YOU READY FOR IT!!??? WEEK 2!!! THE RESULTS!!!  WELL HERE IT IS SHORTLY AFTER MY ANNOYING CAPS LOCK FREAK OUT!! :)  Okay, for real, well it's our second week and we are happy to report no nervous breakdowns.  I mean there's been a time or two we have been tempted..Those pesky McDonald's cheeseburgers I swear call my name, but I didn't answer them!  So here we are with our Week 2 results and we are happier than ever that we didn't gain, we LOST! AND....:

Jocelyn's Results

Weight Lost: 3.7 lbs

Status: I can't believe it!!!

Michael's Results

Weight Lost: 1 lb

Status: Aww not plural lb, but still lost! :D

Now that we're going into our third week, I must say I am nervous.  I never went past 2 weeks where I stuck to a weight loss plan and didn't gain the weight back.  So going past this 2 week mark is a milestone for me.  I will be on high alert all week long trying to continue this, but I have no choice anyways so I don't know what I'm talking about :)  I'm so proud of Michael this week that he keeps trucking along and we're in this together till the end.

Tonight we went to the grocery store.  We decided to make our trips on Tuesday because the produce isn't that great on Sunday's.  We have come to the conclusion that our meal schedule will be from Wednesday to Tuesday.  I'm so excited for this week because we have some scrumptious meals planned.  Tomorrow I will post some pictures of the past meals we made last week as well as our meal tomorrow evening, to tantalize your taste buds.  

This week the tips we are following from Dr. Oz are:

• You may be used to fried foods but there are other, sometimes healthier, ways to cook including: roasting, steaming, poaching, baking, braising and broiling.
• Do your grocery shopping with a list and a time limit; that way, you're less likely to stray into the processed foods section

We sorta follow these already, but this week we will pay extra special attention to them and let you know how they go!

Till tomorrow when I post some delicious looking photos of our meals.

Jocelyn

Weekly Update, From the Bo-Man!

The 2nd official weigh-in is tomorrow already! Sorry for the lack of posts in the past week, life got a little busy.  But I'm back!  With an attack! Or maybe that's just whack! Because I am just here with an update on how our lifestyle change is going, and our implementation of the two Dr. Oz's tips.  For starters, I implemented the following tip this past week and it has had some positive affects.

Skipping Meals Can Cause Your Body to Go Into A Fat-Storing Starvation Mode, Making It Harder to Burn Calories

Well folks, the last couple of years I have forgone that essential part of everyone's daily morning routine, breakfast!  I am just not a morning person, plain and simple.  I have to drag my booty out of bed every morning just for a 8:30 shift, so I never found time to make a breakfast.  Through some convenience changes (I now have a good microwave and a nice sized fridge at my office), it has made it possible for me to implement this tip! Every morning this past week I have enjoyed a bowl of plain oatmeal with some kind of fruit diced up into it, primarily strawberries.  I will have to say, adding the breakfast into my diet does give me a general boost in energy, and definitely satiates me until lunch.  Key thing I notice is that at lunch I find I become full faster.  Overall, this has helped curb some of my immense appetite and fast food cravings and in turn I intake less.  Although, overall I still take in enough to live a healthy lifestyle.  Jocelyn can speak on the other Dr. Oz tip, as I am mildly allergic to walnuts, and I am not the biggest olive fan. :) Though we have been using healthier liquid fats such as olive oil in place of the junk like vegetable oil, margarine, and butter.  I don't believe we have had butter since before the New Year.

Overall I can say there's improvement in my alertness, mental functioning, and energy.  It is a slow improvement but definitely a noticeable one.  I still feel a bit foggy, and I am still pretty tired a decent chunk of the day, but those factors are becoming less and less!  We are sticking with healthy non-heavy meals, snacking on vegetables and fruits every few hours to keep our metabolism up.  Jocelyn has been religiously taking pictures of our meals, maybe some will post soon :)  

This lifestyle change is becoming habit, I do most everything without thought now.  Next step is doing better with my workout regimen!  I definitely see this being a truly lifelong change for the better of both mine and Jocelyn's health.  It's about time, because I plan on a long life with everyone!! ;)

Tune in tomorrow for Week 2 Weigh-in results!

Michael OUT!

Week 1 Results Are In!!!

Well its Tuesday, and it's the end of our first week and the start of our second.  We had some small struggles but at the end of this week we are pretty pleased with our results! We made it!!!  Drumroll please....

Jocelyn's Results

Weight Lost: 4.3 lbs

Status: Happy? or just plain "losin" it! :)

Michael's Results

Weight Lost: 11.4 lbs

Status: Seriously Serious, bout losing some serious weight!

You might have to click the image to get a better look at Jocelyn's fabulous white board art ;) We'd like to thank everyone who has been supporting us this entire first week of our lifestyle change and hope you continue joining us on our long heartwarming, tearjerking, dramatic...errr fun journey! :)  Side Note: Jocelyn watches too much Grey's Anatomy.

This post is going to be a little short tonight, but before we leave you, we would like to share something informative that we think will be helpful for our lifestyle change, and hopefully yours!!  A week ago Jocelyn found Dr. Oz's 100 Weight Loss Tips.  After much review we decided they would be very helpful in our life change.  Our goal is to try implementing two tips from this great list at the beginning of every week.  At the end of the week we will determine if the tips are feasible for lifelong adoption, and maybe you will get some fun little anecdotes :D  And some of these tidbits we found out we are already doing!  First off here's a link to the list in question.  Dr. Oz's 100 Weight Loss Tips  Then here's the two tips that we are going to try implementing this week:

• Foods with healthy fats such as olives, salmon and walnuts help you feel satisfied.
• Skipping meals can cause your body to go into a fat-storing starvation mode, making it harder to burn calories.

Off to bed we go!

Jocelyn and Mike

Back Away from the Nutter Butters and No One Gets Hurt

To put it lightly today was a struggle. I woke up this morning feeling great, ready to take on the world and tackle anything in my way. I was determined to bust through my work day joyfully and try to burn as many calories I could by moving and keeping busy. I started my day off with a healthy breakfast, the usual oatmeal and a grape fruit along with a big glass of water and green tea. Even though I am eating every three hours and filling my diet with healthy foods, fibers and proteins I am still struggling with hunger. I am not certain if I am just not getting enough calories or maybe I am doing something wrong. I have read in many places that I should eat every 3-4 hours to keep my metabolism up, and than I have read that I should never ever snack between meals. Does anyone have any advice on what to eat or even do to overcome my hunger problems? Or could this possibly be psychological? 

For the past 6 days I have been doing very well with cravings. In fact I haven`t thought about pop, fast food, or any comfort food hardly at all. Than suddenly around 1 o`clock it hit me unexpectedly. There laying in front of me was a bag of cheese puffs, and I went to grab for them and suddenly I stopped. First of all, I don`t even like cheese puffs. Second of all, I didn`t really need it. Third and most important was that even by thinking about eating cheese puffs I feel so guilty as though I am cheating on Michael and letting him down and for a matter of fact anyone who is following us and supporting us. So, I backed away from the cheese puffs. By the time four o`clock rolled around, I found myself facing yet another gargantuan situation concerning my hunger issues. I would like to blame this completely on the Nutter Butter Sandwich Cookies and its inviting taste, however, I must take responsibility. The vending machine looked so inviting with all that yummy, high calorie food that it was so hard to resist. In fact I was pretty certain I heard it calling my name (no I am not hallucinating). In order to avoid a food catastrophe I removed myself from the warm, cozy break room and went out side in the freezing cold and sat my tuckus on a cold bench eating my apple and almonds. A part of me was sulking, I really wanted that Nutter Butter cookie, yet there was a part that was celebrating because I yet again succeeded against temptation. The hours slowly passed at work and I became even more hungry, and a bit irritable because everything at this point seemed to make my mouth water. I had visions of Wendy`s chicken sandwiches, McDonald's hamburgers, Starbucks Latte`s all dancing in my head. I have not yet determined if these visions were due to extreme hunger or maybe emotional eating. I will confess I am an emotional eater, a stress eater, and a boredom eater. Ok, you caught me I am every type of eater except a little eater. On the drive home, the hour drive home may I add, I cringed every single time I passed an exit with one of my favorite fast foods. I made it home safely, without any incidents but temptation was nipping at my heals all day long. I just pray that temptation gives me a break tomorrow because she was sure nasty today.

Tonight Mike cooked me a delicious dinner. We got to use our new rice cooker/steamer. This was so exciting!!!! He steamed carrots and rice for me and cooked me a delicious mouth watering piece of chicken with his own seasonings. It wasn't Wendy`s , McDonalds, or even those Nutter Butter Cookies, it was BETTER!!! I was extremely glad that I waited and resisted all temptation all day long! I took a picture of our meal tonight, to share with you and also because I thought it deserved a picture.

Yummy in my tummy

Brown rice, steamed carrots, chicken with Sicilian spice blend + cayenne pepper

Michael testin' out the new rice cooker and steamer!

Tomorrow I start classes again. I have written out a plan of snacks throughout the days I have classes so the hunger monster does not come out. I am excited for a new semester and also I have access to a free gym! Which I am taking advantage of tomorrow! I am dreading it a little, but I have music!!! More tomorrow...Stay Tuned...

Jocelyn

No more "Weighting"

There seems to be a tad bit of puzzlement concerning our lifestyle change. I want to clarify that this is not, I repeat not a DIET. The dreaded "D" word is not forever a banned word from out household.However to be technical healthy foods, fruits,vegetables,meats,etc will be part of our permanent diet. To be honest though, I can not blame people for thinking we are on a diet and that this may just be another fad diet. I do not like to make promises I don`t intend to keep, but I promise you that this is not a fad diet, its not a kick, it won`t just  last a couple weeks or a couple months, this is a lifetime change.However, based on my history I do not blame one soul for thinking this won`t last.It`s sort of like the "Little Boy Who Cried Wolf", everyone has stopped believing me.

I must confess that I am a yo-yo dieter. I am rather ashamed to admit that about every absurd diet out there I have tried and I have failed. I once tried a diet that consisted of soup, tabasco sauce,and lots of vitamins. I will admit with the soup diet I lost 11 pounds in one week and it was great, but I gained it all back plus 2 pounds in 2 weeks. Then there was the slim fast diet, the Yoplait Diet, the Special K diet, and the Adkins diet, all of which I failed. I once read that fish oil and the vitamin B12 would help you lose weight, and although this does help aide weight loss it does not help when you eat fattening food and don`t exercise. I tried limiting myself to 500 calories a day only to put my body into starvation mode. There were those times that I decided to eat just low calorie and low fat foods and exercise every day and that was a great decision. However, like every single choice I made about losing weight it lasted less than two weeks. With my history in mind I have come to the decision that if I can make it past two weeks, I will be able to go the whole way.

I am not past the 2 week mark, nor have I even made it past the first week, but I just know that this time will be it. I will finally past the finish line and although I will not get a medal, I will get something even better, a healthier future. I am determined that this time is different because I have much more to work for. I am 26 years old which in my eyes is 4 years away from thirty. I am not getting any younger nor am I getting any healthier unless I finally do something about it. The things I look forward to that I remind my self every day is being able to run without getting out of breath, coming home from work and my legs not hurting, being able to breathe more easy, having less back aches, being able to look in the mirror and actually be happy, and not spending 2 hours deciding what to wear because every thing makes me look fat. However, my ultimate motivations are even better than that. I want to look beautiful when I walk down the aisle some day to the man of my dreams (a.k.a Michael), I want to be able to push my kids on a swing and run in the park, I want to see my grandchildren and even great grandchildren and most of all I want to love the body I have worked so hard for. So, there will be no more "weighting" in my life.

I am apologetic that there have been no posts for the past two days due to Michael and I being extremely busy. However since Thursday a lot has happened in my life, and Michael's as well, but he already shared. Friday morning I woke up and the first time in years I had no neck aches. I worked a 12 hour shift that day and came home without leg pains which was a complete and utter miracle. My legs are usually extremely swollen especially after being on them all day, no Doctor can tell you why but I will tell you that they usually hurt me so bad. I am proud to share with you that my legs are showing a decrease in swelling. I am also getting a little "wiggle" room in my pants, which makes it easier to sit down. I am one of those girls who has to do a "butt wiggle" in order to get into my pants because my thighs are too big but one day I hope that "butt wiggle" will become extinct.

Regarding my eating habits I can proudly announce that there has been a tremendous change.In the morning I eat a bowl of oatmeal with half a grapefruit along with a big glass of water and a mug of green tea. On a side note I love tea. I try to eat every 3 hours and include snacks such as apples, pineapple, carrots,almonds,cucumbers,etc. I have been eating 2 to 3 apples a day because I have researched that apples are great in fiber and also good for suppressing your appetite along with other benefits. To put it in a humorous way, an apple a day keeps the fat away. For lunches at work I do salad with avocados, eggs, tuna, chicken because I like variety. One thing I did wrong in my past was repeat foods constantly which caused boredom. I have strayed away from salad dressings because even the light ones can rack up your calorie intake. Instead I sprinkle on cayenne pepper, black pepper, red peppers, and sometimes ancho chile peppers. For a substitute dressing I have been using Franks Red Hot sauce, which let me tell you on salad it is amazing. Also, I have been putting cayenne pepper, or anything spicy on pretty much everything minus fruits of coarse, that is just not right. I just like to spice up my life!!!!!  For dinner Mike and I have been doing great, watching our portion sizes and also experimenting with healthy foods. I have been cutting up veggies for snacks and also a salad for the entire week so it is convenient. I have found that it does take a bit of time at first but saves so much time in the week and also saves over indulging in the bad foods. We have meals planned out for the entire week and they sound simply scrumptious. Will reveal details through out the week.
Since it is getting later and 5:15 a.m comes early I must bid you good-bye.
Farewell for now Followers,
Jocelyn

Short and Ancient Sweets!

Smooth sailing.  Sheesh, cravings are a pain in the patoot.  Anyone ever do a study on the addictive nature of foods before?  I digress...Although it hasn't been an entire 7 days, this is the mark of the end of the first calendar week of our lifestyle change and the result, everything is becoming much easier and I can see this being a stay for our lives.  You can still have amazing tasty foods and enjoy them all while staying healthy.  I notice that I really just never looked into all the other options out there and didn't realize how fun it can be to get creative with spices, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seasonings.  Jocelyn may write about what we had for dinner tonight with photographic evidence, but I must say it was tantalizing to my taste buds! :)  Chicken and asparagus with a rosemary based blend and Sicilian spice blend respectively.  Still drooling thinking about it.

The workout routine continues along well.  The soreness is a little unpleasant the day after, but I know from my previous workout stints it gets much better.  I can't wait for the soreness feeling that actually motivates and makes me feel I accomplished something good for myself.  If you have been on a workout regimen before you know what I am talking about ;)  Plus the natural workout high is great when your body is used to the physical activity again.

On a side note, I decided to track my calories with MyFitnessPal for the past 5 days to see how much I actually intake when ignoring all of my sweets/fast food/fatty food/extra servings cravings.  This helped me gauge how minimal I can get by with eating and has given me the idea of how much I should and can eat in the day without destroying my healthy living.  Turns out I only intake about 1200 calories!  Never once did it go past that amount.  Don't worry folks! I won't accept this terribly low calorie intake, just a test! A test that has given me a way to gauge what amounts of food I can intake, and believe me I thought it would have to be much more restrictive! I can do this!!

I want to wrap up with the reason for today's post title. I felt it fitting seeing as though nothing above talks about ancient sweets, nor is this blog post short! ;) Jocelyn and I decided that we are going to start trying one new thing in our menu every week.  Whether that is new vegetables, fruits, spices, meats.  This week just so happens to be Ancient Sweet Red Peppers! These are long slender red peppers with this amazing sweet peppery taste!  We are going to try them in our salads this week.  I think I may try to cook them up with one of our dishes this week too.  That is my Short and Ancient Sweet update.

Thanks for all of the comments so far.  Having your support motivates us so much and keeps us going strong!

Michael OUT!

A Little Experiment

Day 2 and keeping strong!  I know this is going to happen this time.  I have never been so intensely focused. Yes folks, this guy is going to experience thinness again for the first time in 18 years!  Jocelyn and I have each other to maintain focus and keep strong.  So my research and google-itis is coming into its own.

I am trying to figure out what I really like as far as vegetables.  I think I am allergic to a number of uncooked vegetables and decided to research possible causes for the itchy throat and upset stomach.  I happened upon a disorder called oral allergy syndrome.  Seems there are a lot of people out there with this.  If anyone ever had similar symptoms check it out.

Lastly, I would like to share a little fruit of my research.  This morning I found this neato little app for smartphones which can be found here MyFitnessPal.

MyFitnessPal

This nifty little app has a food diary, a neat little fitness calculator, and exercise tracker.  It will even calculate, based on your vitals, how many calories you need to intake daily in order to meet you goal weight in the time frame you want.  It allows you to keep track of calories in the food diary as well, with a nifty little feature to scan bar codes and automatically input the food you ate and the servings.

I only intend to use this for a couple weeks at least in order to see where all my calories and nutrition are coming from and give me a good gauge of what I can accomplish with my exercise and moderation in food consumption.

Jocelyn continues to be a great support and motivator, she is definitely my rock :)

This is gonna happen, that's for sure :)

Michael OUT!

DAY ONE LETS CALL THIS SUCCESS!!!

Ok so first full day started off with me cheating. I ate a big bowl of popcorn, went to Arbys, and drink a humongous cup of pop. I know we just started yesterday and I am already cheating. This would be terrible if only it was true but luckily it was my subconscious cheating and not me. So in reality I cheated just in my dreams,hehe.

The first full day of our new lifestyle change has come and is almost gone and both of us can proudly say it has been a success!!! Michael went back to work today after his holiday vacation and instead of the usual lunch out he decided to visit the store and pack up the work fridge with healthier options such as turkey,bread and a bunch of vegetables. Unfortunately for him he can not eat many raw vegetables due to allergic reactions so this calls for a little improvising and some creativity.We have plans to steam carrots and other veggies in our new rice cooker/steamer that we recieved at Christmas during a mad Santa gift exchange. We are super excited about this!(Yes, we are dorks) Michael spent some time after work today sweating in the basement and stinking it up.This calls for a job for FEBREEZE!!!(hehe,just kidding) He spent about 30 minutes lifting some weights and proudly came up the stairs and flexed his muscles,he is so proud of himself.I am very proud of him as well.

Our dinner tonight did not consist of the usual quickie such as macaroni and cheese or greasy pizza but instead a nutritious delicious and quite colorful salad with hard boiled eggs. We spiced it up a little with some cayenne and black pepper and it was simply scrumptious. I spent some time tonight preparing for the next day by cutting up fruits and veggies for my lunch tomorrow at work. Tomorrow I return to work after my holiday vacation so I must get all prepared to have snacks and nutritious meals ready to go . I spent a decent amount of time cleaning out the pantry and boy was that a job. I threw a lot of junk food out today such as chips and cookies and all sorts of stuff but what really pierced my heart was when I had to pour my favorite pop,Diet Dr.Pepper down the drain. That moment was heart wrenching. However, this is our new lifestyle and pop does not need to be in our house anymore. I felt like playing the song "Hit the road,Jack" when I was cleaning out the pantry but I did not.

My exercise today included about 5 hours of deep cleaning the house, yes I consider this exercise. I once read in a magazine that you can burn several hundred calories by cleaning an hour around the house, so I consider my cleaning marathon a work out. After dinner I road the bike for 20 minutes in the basement, but I didn`t stink it up like Mike did (hehe).

I have come to the conclusion that I need to research how to prepare vegetables the proper way because I am not exactly sure how to cut up lettuce, artichokes, peppers, etc. This will be my little research project tomorrow.\

After today I can easily say that I am so pumped for tomorrow. Plus all the walking a do down the halls equals more calories burned. I just may have to lay off the water a little because that equals too many bathroom visits!
For now,
Jocelyn

Festively Plump...To Festively Svelt

We begin our journey weighing in together at a whopping total of 485.4lbs! Since today is the first day of 2013 we found it suitable to begin our arduous journey today.  Many preparations have been made including a complete clean out of the pantry, and a donation of cookies to our esteemed photographer and her family.  In our pilgrimage to the grocery store today, we filled up our cart full of protein, fruits and veggies! We turned a blind eye at the pop mountain in the middle of the aisle, scurried past the butter and cheese, and ignored the "Please Eat Me!" cries of the cookie aisle.  Armed with our new nourishment we left the store pleased with our first SUCCESS!

Things have gotten to the point there we just could not continue on our path of passive destruction of our bodies.  We have grown tired of having the bodies of those that are two, maybe even THREE times our age!  Every morning we are woken groggy, and everything hurts from our heads to our toes.  We attempt to avert our eyes from the slew of mirrors that don our rooms with fear of what we will see, yet again we fail to succeed and find ourselves disgusted.  The scale lies on the ground collecting dust, beckoning us to step on it so it can insult us with its harsh bluntly honest digits.

We know we have no one else to blame for those digits but ourselves.  It was our horrible habits, that lead us to continually taking in sugary pop, ordering in, and tons and tons of unhealthy baking.  It has already been decided since December that butter is banned from our home for months.  However, butter is not the only culprit in this dilemma.  So here we are paying the price for our bounty of horrible lifestyle decisions which is now leading us to a major lifestyle change!

But we digress... From here on out we will be cataloguing our struggles and our successes in our new lifestyle change.  Since we are two different individuals, we will be indulging from each of our own perspectives.  We will post a picture the First Tuesday of Every Month, with how much we have lost individually and with how much we weight together as a couple, sneakily hiding our individual weights ;) yeah, we are sneaky.  We look forward to you being a part of our journey and we hope to be an inspiration (given we succeed!) to many others.  Also we may need a little inspiration from you, courtesy of the comments section below each post, or a phone call if you must!  Annnnnnd we're spent!

The Show Must Go On,

Jocelyn and Mike