It's almost the New Year...bring on the diet craze

Have I told anyone lately that I hate the word DIET...well I do.

Diet

/dīət/

noun

a special course of food to which one restricts oneself, either to lose weight or for medical reasons.

Why is it that we feel that we need to restrict ourselves in order to lose weight. It turns out that when you restrict yourself from foods, you WILL find yourself wanting it more. This typically only leads to failure. You can only resist your cravings for a certain amount of time, which is why Diets never work.

Instead of restrictions,,,,why not give yourself more??? I am not telling you to go and eat ice cream! But what I am telling you is give yourself something that makes you feel like you are eating ice cream. I was a HUGE ice cream eater...I loved the stuff right before bed. Yummmmmm! When I began living healthier, I froze bananas, added some cocoa powder and then food processed it. It became an ice cream like consistency and gave me the feeling like I was eating ice cream. I never felt restricted. I felt satisfied. You will find success when you give yourself foods that your body is wanting instead of fighting the cravings. I do believe in cutting down on bad things for you like saturated fats, refined carbs, sugar, and salt...but to eliminate all together will never generate success.

I know that New Year's is coming up...and there are so many people out there wanting to lose weight. My challenge to you is to  live healthier. Focus on health, focus on movement, focus on water, focus on strength, focus on freshness, focus on sleep, focus on less stress. Be aware of what you are doing good for your body. When you are aware and focused on health....the weight will come off! But I challenge you to start today...why wait until Jan 1. Start today! Do something good for your body today!

Helping others...need your help!

I love looking at pictures of before and now. You tend to forget where you started. I know for me, seeing comparisons remind me how far I have come. When I look at this and I think back to almost 4 years ago, I am so proud of my accomplishments. This makes me want to really help others with their health and life goals. I want so badly to help other people feel this way and have pictures like this. I am putting together a plan to make this happen! Now is the time! Set goals and go for it! If you have health goals, would you pay for someone with experiences like mine to help you lose weight, maintain weight, or make healthier food choices through the holiday season?? I am wanting feedback on what you would pay? I am looking into helping one or two people locally during the holiday season who are ready to make changes. Then in January, looking into a bigger group setting. I need feedback friends! What do you think?? 

Lunch happiness

Let me tell you about this pretty lunch! Well today was a restart from the weekend that was full of snacking on my kids' Halloween Candy! Holy smokes I am a sucker for an Almond Joy! So I needed to get back on track today! We got a case if blackberries from bountiful baskets and I had some spinach so I decided to make this delicious salad for lunch. I drizzled about 1- 2 teaspoons of poppyseed dressing in top. I also added 1/2 cup lowfat cottage cheese. I love a salad with cottage cheese! A lot of the time I don't use a dressing and just use cottage cheese! I added some almonds and cucumbers. This salad was packed with protein, fiber and tons of vitamins! No guilt here! 

Body Blast

I got signed up for a workout class by Pauline, my mother in law. She told me it was a fantastic class aimed at cardio and strength training. It is put on by Sheridan Physical Therapy and Fitness Center. Basically this class has 15 circuits and it is filled with cardio and lots of full body strength training exercises.  Some of the activities are burpees, mountain climbers, dips, lunges, squats, push ups, and planks. Sounds horrible right? I know that it sounds miserable but it is so much fun! This group of people are so fun! They are encouraging and and will push you to do one more set. It's fast paced! You do one rotation through all of the stations for 45 seconds. Then you break for about 5 minutes and then do another rotation through for 30 seconds. I have enjoyed seeing results as well. I guess my words of wisdom would be to change it up, try something new! You might find something you love, or hate, but at least you've tried it. I still hate burpees but I know I only have to do them for  90 seconds!  ;)

Staying on track and staying at home

I can't lie that when I began staying at home, I was petrified on how I would continue to stay on track. I had the worries of slipping into my old habits of mindless eating and not very much activity. I knew I had to set my life up in a way that I wouldn't let this happen. I can't let myself slip because I have come so far. So here is what I have been doing to keep up with my progress.

We are staying at an extended stay hotel and luckily it has a kitchen (microwave, full fridge, stove, and sink) So I can cook! It's also my job to not spend money now that we are on a single income, so eating out is NOT an option. Luckily we have lots of family here in Sheridan and they are feeding us well! We joke that we are riding the "meal train" and we are owning it. Shhh don't tell them that we don't really feel bad for it! :)

I snack throughout the day and rarely sit down for a meal until dinner. My snacking consists of a handful of almonds, a couple grapes, a bowl of cucumbers and tomatoes, some hummus and crackers, and a couple pieces of turkey. When you snack on healthy foods you don't feel bad for snacking! I feel satisfied and I rarely feel hungry.

I have been working out almost every morning. After I go and drop Avon off at school, Kenley, Leah and I hit the pathways or the parks for a work out. They also have a free gym here at the hotel, so I really have NO excuses.

Here are some pics of our excursions.

We love picking produce at grandmas house

It snowed but we still play outside!

We go to the library and we got our new cards. 

We play at the park with cousins

Kenley and Leah are my workout buddies while Av is at school! 

This hill is a doozie!

We love running and riding up by the elk and buffalo! This is how we get from our new house to the park! Pretty awesome! 

We love Fridays because Av gets to join us! He goes to school Monday-Thursday. We love this time together! 

So 2 weeks into living here and I am proud to say that I am at my lowest weight on record. 159 pounds. That is a total weight loss at 114 pounds! Wowza! What I love is the feeling of looking great and feeling great!

Posting from our new town

Wow! I said in my last post that changes were coming my way. The big changes are that my husband has accepted a new job in Sheridan Wyoming. We have always talked about coming back here...the last week in June we had a great discussion on a quick road trip to Rapid City about where we were going with careers, life, dreams, etc. We kind of threw it out there....I remember his words, "I want to move back to Sheridan" I sat in the passenger seat and looked at him and said "me too." When I was dating Reo, I came to Sheridan every weekend to visit him the summer after we met in Casper. I fell in love with Reo that summer and knew there was something about this man that I couldn't live without. I fell in love with Sheridan that summer as well. The beauty of the mountains, the valleys, and the feeling of this small town had me smitten.

When you open the doors, it is amazing what happens. It wasn't a week later that Reo's friend let him know that there was an engineering position coming open at a coal mine. And within 2 months we are now "living" in Sheridan. I say "living" because I am staying in an extended stay hotel with 2 kids, and the dog.                          

We are searching for a house and hoping that our house in Gillette sells quickly. Here it is...I love our home so much but I am excited for this new adventure.


So where do all of these changes leave me??? Well, I am officially employed as a stay at home mom. I left my job as an Early Intervention Instructor where I provided children ages 3-5 with special education. I worked there for over 6 years. There were so many aspects about my job that I loved! But there were things that I didn't always love. What I did love was those kids and my co-workers. It's funny how you really realize how much you were loved until it's time to say good bye.

This past year was tough on me. I can't explain what happened but I felt this longing to be home with my kids more. The school where I worked is a year round facility so summer was tough on me. I wanted so badly to have some time off to be with my kids. I felt myself slipping into a place of complacency at work. I wasn't the same employee that I prided myself on being. There wasn't enough time in the day to get done what I needed to at work the way that I liked it to be done(I am a bit of a perfectionist and super tough on myself...a true virgo and first born qualities) and also go home to be a good wife and mother. When I say this past year was tough on me....it might have been tougher on my husband and kids. I took home every ounce of stress, deadlines coming closer, time crunches, paperwork, situations with families, ideas that I wanted to implement, and the feeling of not being able to get to it all. I was rarely present at home because my mind was on work.  I didn't like the path, I was headed on through no fault of my own. I took on new committees, more kids, more challenges, and I never said it was too much. Through this weight loss journey, I have prided my self on a transformation of mind, body and spirit, but I was struggling in the spiritual part. My emotional health was not ok, and I needed to make changes.

When we sat down to discuss jobs for me in Sheridan. Reo looked at me and said, "let's set our lives up there so you don't have to work" I remember this feeling of pure relief and like a weight had been lifted off my chest. Reo has been so incredibility supportive to me finding what I want to do and to not settle for a job that I don't love. This has me so excited. I have an idea of what I want to do, but now I need to figure out how to make it happen.

What I am excited about is to spend some time with my kids. Time that is strictly devoted to them without my mind being on work. I am excited to make our home and life here in Sheridan. We are so blessed to have so many family members here and I love that my kids are going to be close to cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, great-grandparents, 2nd cousins, and new friends. I am excited to take time to take my dad to Denver for appointments without worrying about what I am missing at work. I am excited to live near the mountains. I plan on doing something every month in the mountains. I am excited to be out at Reo's dad's ranch. Kenley loves horse riding, so hopefully we can get her some riding time. I am excited for the possibilities that I have to do exactly what I want to do.

Here are a few pics of our life so far in Sheridan...


Avon playing flag football. He made the paper with this run!



Kenley drew this house of what she wants our new house to look like in Sheridan.


Av on his first day of school at Big Horn Elementary!

Summer hiadus

Wow, is it possible that summer is coming to an end... I feel so bad that I haven't kept up with this! I know that there are those that are wondering what has been going on this summer, so here's the skinny! Haha

My husband and I have continued with our life style. We have had a great summer and just returned from an AWESOME vacation with our friends to Palisades Reservoir in Idaho. Oh man do we miss them. It was great re-connecting our families. We took a picture 2 years ago in Jackson and re-created it on our trip. I love it! It's such a great reminder to where we came from and how to keep going.


Can you believe the difference! I just love the way we look now! We feel so much better about ourselves!



I love this pic of us and our buddies! I love that time and distance haven't changed our relationship! Love the Ripkos!

We have been very busy. It seems that every weekend, we have something planned. We spent two weekends in Sheridan in July, where we got to see so many family members. Several of our family members haven't seen Reo since his big transformation. It's still crazy to hear the reactions of our weight loss from those who haven't seen us. Here are some fun pics from our summer


I got a hammock last year for my birthday for camping, but I never got to use it! This camping trip, I used it! I drank morning coffee in it and took a glorious afternoon nap in it! LOVE IT!


We ate ice cream! YUMMMM!

We took awesome pics of the kids camping in this old Model A car! The kids loved it!



My husband ran in his first 5K! Yeah babe! We ran it together and we finished in 29:00 min! Not too shabby!


With all of the craziness that is going on, the truth is we haven't let it impact our lifestyle. We still eat a ton of fruits and veggies and try to nix most processed foods. Hope this is a little glimpse of what we have been up to! Look forward to more blogs coming from me as changes are coming my way!