Sweat Report 3/20 – 3/26

S 35 min walk around neighborhood with TT6, pushed SB3 in stroller

M 20 min bike to the park for picnic + 30 minute walk to library. Checked out books!

T 55 min hike on nature trails
W rest
T 32 min walk/run (Increased running to six, 55 second intervals!)
F 16 min bike ride
S 45 min bike ride

3 great achievements this week:

1. Went from being able to run 45 seconds to 55 seconds!

2. Drug out my summer clothes from last year and they fit.

3. Went camping and didn’t gain weight. It’s a miracle. A shout out to my mom for changing the way we do food while camping. We focused more on our activities than on eating.

Better Than I Usually Do

(Let’s get this out of the way first: I know McDonald’s has no place in a blog about healthy eating. But I refuse to pretend my family doesn’t eat there. I wish we didn’t, but it's a reality for me and probably a lot of other busy moms.)

Now for my post:

We all know what and how much we usually eat. These choices have led us to the size we currently are. I recently realized that in order to eat healthier I don’t have to give up my usual food and only eat salad. I just need to eat better than I usually do.

Let’s use McD’s as an example. I usually order 2 cheeseburgers and fries. I could order 2 hamburgers instead of cheeseburgers and a parfait instead of fries. It’s not rabbit food, but it’s a small change that I can handle. (And I won’t feel deprived!) Eventually, using these baby steps I’ll get to a healthy diet.

Before every meal ask: “How can I eat better than I usually do?”

Weekly Sweat Report 3/13 - 3/19

S 30 minute walk with TT6, SB3 on bike No GBD (Goofball Dad). I'm proud I got the kids together to go by myself!

M 30 minute walk/run (6 sets of 40 second run intervals)

T Pulled weeds 1 hour

W Rest

T Pulled weeds 45 minutes

F Rest

S 29 minute walk/run (7 sets of 45 second run intervals)

This week I’m so excited we added 5 seconds to our running! Yesterday, one of our neighbors cheered us on as we ran by her house. It brought tears to my eyes because it reminded me of being back in the middle of a 5k. I really miss the crowds and their encouragement. TT6 got a taste of people yelling and encouraging her. I could tell she was proud of herself. I can’t wait until she can run in the Disney races!

I never realized I would enjoy pulling weeds so much. It’s very stress relieving for me. I think I may have some anger issues. Haha!

You can email me your weekly exercise reports at fatfightingmom@gmail.com if it would help you be accountable to someone. I'd love to see what you're doing.

Easy St. Patrick’s Day Snack

This is a super simple snack for St. Patrick’s Day parties. Kids can do the entire process!

1 box Lucky Charms cereal

2 small bags plain M&Ms

2 boxes Cheez-It Snack Mix

¼ jar peanuts

1. Pick out all the marshmallows from the Lucky Charms cereal. (We’ll feed the rest to the birds.)
2. Pick out only the green M&Ms. (We trashed the rest. GO FFM!!!)
3. Pour the snack mix, peanuts, green M&Ms, and Lucky Charms marshmallows into a bowl.
4. Mix and serve in green cups.

I added peanuts to the mix to increase the protein. But be careful when picking out peanuts, most have added sugar.

Magical Straws

Quick Tip: A straw can turn yogurt, sugar-free pudding, or applesauce into an easy on the go healthy snack. Punch it through the top and there’s no mess!

Side notes:

SB3 was being a pain and wanted the top off of his. Since we were at home it was okay.

Be careful with yogurt with bits of fruit. It gets stuck, which causes really funny faces. :)

Jump Rope Queen

We had a great victory in the Fat Fight yesterday: TT6 won the Jump Rope Queen Award for her class at school! She did 15 jumps. This may not sound like much until you know the story leading up to it.

Ever since our family started focusing on our health, TT6 decided she wanted to make it all the way across the monkey bars at school. I was never able to make it across them so I seriously doubted that she could do it. Well, she focused and practiced until she had huge blisters on her palms. She made it all the way across!! (Victory #1)

When she told me she made it across I was so excited I told her she could have $15 as a reward. In the past, she has always equated rewards with food- usually ice cream or candy. But not this time! She decided she wanted a hula hoop and jump rope from Target. (Victory #2)

She has spent the past couple of weeks practicing with her jump rope everyday and getting lots of extra exercise. (Victory #3) Then she was able to do it 15 times at school to earn the certificate. She was so proud of herself! (Victory #4)  

I’m so proud of my little girl. Not for being the Jump Rope Queen, but for changing her idea of fun from food to activity. It’s times like this that make the effort of my daily fight totally worth it.

Sweat Report 3/6 - 3/12

S 30 minutes. 1.8 miles around the neighborhood. Ran 6 intervals of 40 seconds each.

M 30 minutes walk around neighborhood. 26 minutes Biggest Loser Challenge for Wii. TT6 begged to do it!

T 1 hour pulling weeds

W rest (sore from weeds)

T 15 minute fast walk (STILL sore from weeds)

F nothing (CRAVING A RUN SESSION! TT6 throwing up so didn’t go.)

S nothing- Forgot to factor in exercise when planning schedule.

Definitely lost the exercise round in the fat fight this past week. I’m determined to do better this week.

Scale: -10 total

Play THEN Eat

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat in fast food restaurants and heard parents tell their kids, “Eat your food and then you can go play.”

Instead, I let my kids go play first while I peacefully enjoy my meal. When they get tired then they come back and eat. If they play the whole time, we just take their food to go. It doesn’t make sense to make them sit still during the time they could be up exercising. I especially love when exercise is disguised as play.

Healthy Breakfast Ideas

When we moved into our new house I tried waking up early to make the kids a nice warm breakfast before school. In order to get everyone ready on time I found myself using lots of convenience foods. There were pancakes, waffles, toaster pastries, French toast sticks, biscuits, cereal, muffins, grits, oatmeal, etc. So many carbs! Not that any of these are bad every once in a while, but TT6 was coming home reporting that she got sooo hungry before lunch time.

I decided to rethink breakfast. Now I’m choosing things with protein and whole grains. Bonus points for it being portable so it can be eaten in the car on the way to school.

Cheese sticks, low-sugar yogurt, greek yogurt, cheese toast, trail mix, reduced sugar oatmeal, banana slices with peanut butter, grapes & cheese, protein bars, eggs with cheese, reduced-fat bacon, etc. 

It’s okay to give up the June Cleaver idea of “breakfast.” Making healthy choices for your family is most important!

Weekly Sweat Report 2/27 - 3/5

S 30 min fast mall walking with favorite stores at the end as a reward

M 36 min walk around our neighborhood 1.7 miles, I had a bad cold thankfully GBD made us go!

T 25 min of The Biggest Loser Challenge for Wii

W 1.5 hours of slow walking around the Zoo

T 30 min fast mall walking with favorite stores at the end

F Rest We all have colds that won’t go away!

S Rest

Scale: -8lbs since Jan 25th

Thrift Stores

Reasons I’ve come to love shopping at thrift stores:

1. The quality. We are blessed to live in a country where our used cast offs are better quality than the best in other countries.
2. The prices. Being able to put together a complete outfit for under $5 is amazing.
3. It’s earth-friendly. I like being able to reuse items and save them from the landfill.
4. Supporting the local community. I like giving my money to our City Rescue Mission or the Humane Society rather than to big businesses.
5. Free from advertising. I like the purity of shopping in a store where I don’t feel tricked and lured by advertising and product placement gimmicks.
6. The options. It’s fun to walk into a store and know you can afford anything you want.

My idea of a thrift store used to be just old dusty junk. They’ve really changed and the demographic of people who shop there is different too. It seems like people are finally letting go of their pride and giving it a try. Once you bring the stuff home and wash it, it’s no worse than anything you buy at a regular store. In fact, it’s better because you know it was a really good deal!

Wait, Let Me Get It

If you have kids, you know how convenient it is to send them to fetch things. Get me the remote, bring me some socks, go turn off the kitchen timer, etc. This is especially true if you are significantly overweight. It takes a LOT of energy just to stand, climb stairs, or simply bend over. It’s much easier for the kids to take care of it.

I didn’t realize how often I made them take care of the little things for me. Now I look at each little thing as a mini-fat burning session. Every time you have to bend over or squat down to pick something up it burns calories and builds muscle.

But you have to be in the right mindset to change this habit. I keep a mental picture of the severely overweight people riding around on chairs in the movie Wall-E. I picture myself turning into that if I don’t get my behind up and take care of the issue myself. Try it, it works.

*Note: This applies to your spouse as well as your kids.