40 Days.....

Ok so it has been almost two years since my last post. Ugh. Oh well, I am thinking I want to keep up with it now.... we will see!

So today is Ash Wednesday. I am Catholic, although not quite practicing. I usually still give up something for lent..... and I usually stick with it. I decided to take this opportunity to give up a few things and even do a little extra. So here is my list:

-No Coffee. I am instead going to drink a huge glass of lemon water when I first wake up. I heard this was really good for your digestive system and it will be a good transition for me to kick the ole coffee habit since we are trying to get pregnant anyway.

-Coconut Oil. Everyday. My sister has been talking about the benefits of cocnut oil and I just havent been on board yet. I somehow bought thig gigantic bottle of organic cocnut oil so I decided what the heck, we will see how I feel in 40 days. I think I may even post of few picks of the delicious food that I will make that has coconut oil in it. I wonder if you can even take shots of it???

-30 minutes of cardio 5 days a week. Plus hopefully I will add some muscle workouts too. I know 30 minutes does not seem like a lot.... but I figure its a start!

-No sweets. I have this addiction to sweets all of the sudden and it is starting to piss me off. I need to kick it, and I will!!!!!

So those are my goals. I hope I am not setting myself up for failure by trying to do so much but I really am going to do it. I am not even saying anymore that I am going to try, I just am going to.

So far Day 1:

No coffee. I was tired as hell this morning but that could be due to the fact that I stayed up till midnight, woke up at 3am to comfort a crying toddler and then woke up at 630am. Not much sleep there and I think I have to blame that on that instead of the coffee.

No sweets and I am doing okay with that. My sister in law is trying to get me off that already bu bringing M&Ms home, I am just glad that she could not locate the Peanut Butter ones, those could have tempted me.... maybe.

Now to the coconut, mmm. This challenge is looking good already. I made this recipe I found online: Shrimp in Coconut Oil, Ginger and Garlic. It used coriander which I have never cooked with before so I was not sure, but it ended up being really good. Here is a picture of it cooking:












It was delicious!!!!

Ok so that is all so far. I am going to go do my workout.

On my way to pre-pregnancy jeans!

So I have been doing this really strict diet for about a week now. Anyone who knows me knows that I tend to try a new diet out every few months or so. We (Hubbie J and I) actually eat pretty well but with our lack of time to workout, we have not had any success in losing weight. With the lack of working out and our weekend eating habits, the weight stopped coming pff after Quinn, and started going back up. Ugh!! A few months ago someone was over a my house talking about a friend of theirs that they knew that lost 30 lbs in a month. I thought they were full of it. Then a few girls at my wrk did this diet and lost about a lb. a day when they were on it. I just couldnt believe it.... so I get online and do a ton of googling. It didnt sound too bad. Its called the HCG Diet (i HATE the name). At first I thought it was just eating extremely low calories and I thought that would be super unhealthy. I didnt really understand it. From what it sounds like, if you take these drops while on a very low calorie diet, you will lose FAT and not muscle and your body will not go into starvation mode. I decided, what the heck!

I ordered my drops on ebay (i know..... but they were the cheapest there) and a week later we started it. I say we because I somehow talked J into doing it with me. Im so luck to have a hubbie who will try out these diets with me :)

The first two days you are suppose to eat fatty foods, not high carb foods, but fatty (the good fat is the best). This is for some reason suppose to help you not be starving hungry the first few days of the diet. During these days you take these drops also - which you will do for the next part of the diet also. Then for the next 21 days you eat two proteins (100 grams each), 2 fruits (chice of strawberries, grapefruit or apple), two vegetables (the choices of these suck, im not even gonna list them) and two melba toasts squares per day. You can have coffee, tea or water and that is it! So Splenda :( Only Stevia. Its hard, I was soooo hungry at first. I can eat a lot at one meal so I know I have stretched out my stomache too much and it needs to shrink back down, hopefully this will do the trick. I have beend rinking so much water and I miss my diet coke dearly.

The first two days, I gained 1.4 lbs. I knew that was gonna happen. I didnt go craz on the fatty foods but did eat of few of my favorites, which include the taquitos from QT - my favorite! So the third day I had a hard time. I drank coffee in the morning, then about 1pm I ate chicken wrapped up in lettuce. I also had strawberries and a melba toast. For dinner we did extra lean ground beef (93/7) with homemade taco seasoning, wraped up in lettuce with tomatoes. I had strawberries and melba toast again. I pretty much repeat lunch the rest of the week and then dinner is meat with tomatoes, and a grapefruit (1/2) with the melba toast. Eating is not fun anymore :( I kep telling myslef its only for three weeks!! Well so far it has paid off and I hope it continues to do so. I have lost a total of 8 lbs since day one of the diet (so really i gained 1.4, then lost 9.4). I really can complain.

This weekend was super hard too. It was my birthday Friday sothe girls at work made some food... even my favorite: chocolate cupcakes with white icing. The cupcake actually sat on my desk for 5 hours. I didnt eat it though. It smelled sooo good! Then that night we went to my sisters and there was bean dip my mom brought over. I LOVE bean dip, but I just sat there and drank my water! Saturday we went to the baseball game. It was hot and I brought in a HUGE water. I wanted a beer so bad. Games realy just arent the same withought a nice refreshing beer. Oh and I think everyone had nachos in their hand. I never eat nachos but they lookd oh so good. That night we had a few friends over and grilled chicken on the grill. I broke down a little though that day. My friend Rachel had these amazing chocolate covered strawberries delivered to my house for my birthday, so I thought it would have been really rude to not eat one ( I mean, its a strawberry, right). And then that night I had a drink. Captain and diet. It was worth it.... I still lost a lb that night.

We will see how it goes. Im learning to make extremely healthy meals. No butter, not even spray butter. I thought I was going to die. I have thought of some really good ways to cook food and I am sure after I lost the weight I need (only 10-15 more) then I will be great at maintaining. Usually I would go this extreme but swimsuit season is next weekend (yikes) and I needed a quick fix. Its not easy but it works (so far).

Finally stepping into the blogging world...

For years I have kept up with different blogs, mainly my sisters, but I thought it would be time to finally try it myslef and see how I liked it. So this is it!

"The only drug I need" refers to my family. I have a beautiful family at home, My husband of two years (this coming Tuesday) and sweet sweet baby Quinn who will be 7 months next week. I also have a amazing family beyond that. Two sisters who are my best buddies and awesome parents. We are very close and life just wouldnt be what it is without them.

This is my baby girl!! This was the first and only time she has been in the big girl bath. Normally we give her a bath in the sink, but she has been splashing so much. We then decided to move her to the bath tub upstairs. We bought toys and his new cool mat, but the first time in it she fell over and hit her head (not too hard) on the side of the tub. Ever since then, it has been back in the sink.... we will get there eventually, just maybe when she is more stable.

I work full time and I have horrible hours. I know I shouldnt complain because I was luck to find a job anyway. I was laid off when I was two months pregnant. The company I worked for relocated to two locations: Raleigh, NC and Dallas, TX. Seeing we just purchased a house, trying to sell it was not the greatest idea so I was out of a job. I had a hard time finding a job at first and eventually I was showing in the belly region. I just hated even having to worry about finding a job. My husband was great and worked really hard so I could stay at home. Once I had Quinn though, I saw that we really needed two incomes so I started looking when she was about 5 weeks old. I was hired on to work 10:45am-7:00pm. I was fine with that, I knew it was gonna be hard but didnt realize how hard! I feel like I get no time with my family. Jeremy, my husband, gets up in the morning and is usually gone by 8 or 9. I get up at 7am so that when Quinn gets up I get to hang out with her till I go to work. By the time I get home I feed her and then she is tired again and ready for bed :( Not to mention, it is impossible to get ANYTHING done. I think that is a problem with any full time working mom though. We are surviving though and I am very greatful to have a job and have one that is so close to my house.

I have been trying to lose this baby weight and it seems to be some stubborn stubborn fat.... I know that it took 9 months it on but its been 7 months already and I just wish it would go away!! My hours dont alow me to join a gym or work out much. I guess I could get up at 5:30 am and do it but who am i kidding.... it wouldnt happen for very long. I try to walk and now that the weather is getting warmer that will be easier. I may eventually even run! But for now, I just need something to get me back into m jeans I was wearing before this pregnany. I dont have much, maybe 15 lbs to do that. Regular dieting just isnt doing the trick, I eat healthy already. I decided to try this HCG diet. I actaully stated today. I am doing these drops that you put under your tongue three times a day. We will see how it goes. So far everyone that I have know that has done it has had great results. My husband and two if my friends started it today also so that will be great support. The first two days consists of eat any fatty foods you can while doing the drops. There is a reason for this, i read it online, i just dont remember exactly what it was. I thought this part would be more fun but it is hard finding fatty foods to eat. We went and used a gift card we had at BC's Kitchen in Lake St. Louis. I had a french dip and fries but then I wasnt hungry for the rest of the day. We made burges and salad later. I pretty much made myself eat them.... tomorrow I will definitely be getting some QT taquitos though, hungry or not. I am hoping this diet works. I know that this may just be another diet that comes and goes but honestly I will do just about anything right now to fit into my jeans. I cant afford to buy new ones and I just dont want to..... so if this si something that will help me do that, I will take it. We will see how it works!!!!!