Happy Workouts

This morning when I woke up, I was dreading going to the gym. My legs hurt from doing my leg workout yesterday and I was just not looking forward to it. I got on the scale :( 91.5kg. I put on my workout clothes and dragged myself to the gym. See that stupid scale is good for some things. 

I decided to take it easy on my legs. I did 30 minutes of cardio: 10 minutes walking on the treadmill, 10 minutes on the upright bike level 3, and 10 minutes on the elliptical level 4. I then did back and abs, the two muscle groups that weren't so sore I could actually move them. 

Then a great thing happened. One of the other gym regulars commented me on my weight loss! I was so happy and it made me very thankful that I had gone to the gym! My friends and family notice my progress, but having a compliment given by a virtual stranger made me feel great. 

I've been to the gym all three days this week. So far so good. 

Yesterday was a little crazy. I had my first shift as an employed person in The Netherlands! That's right I'm employed! So exciting. I only worked four hours, but I was up at 5:45, something that hasn't happened in a very long time. So I ate breakfast before work: bran flakes with almond milk and a banana, and a hard boiled egg. After work I had lunch part 1: 1/2 peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and an apple. I then went to the gym and did 40 minutes of cardio: 15 minutes on the treadmill, 15 minutes on the upright bike and 10 minutes on the stair climber. I then did a leg workout: 3X12 squats with 30kg, 3X10 (each leg) step ups, 2X10 (each leg) lunges, 2X10 (each leg) side lunges, 3X10 sumo squats, 3 X10 narrow squats, and 3X10 calf raises. 

After the gym I ate a quest bar. When I got home I had lunch part 2: 1/2 peanut butter and jelly sandwich, greek yogurt with strawberries. 

Dinner was salmon, spinach, and a bit of boiled potatoes. 

I was so hungry all evening. It was ridiculous. I had crackers with cheese, a sandwich, and a few snack sausages AND I could have continued to eat. BUT I didn't, and I also didn't buy the ice-cream I wanted from the supermarket. I had it in my hand and it was at the checkout line, but I put it back. Yay for small victories. 

My weight continues to frustrate me, but it will get better. It has to. 

Realizations

Things have been sailing along pretty smoothly the past few days. I took all of last week off from the gym to rest my ankle/recover from this evil cold I still have. 

Friday night we went to a birthday party. Dinner was pasta (white), with some chicken mixture of chicken, cheese, canned soup and peaches, and salad. Not necessarily completely unhealthy, but also not on the list of foods I want to be putting into my body regularly. I also had a slice of cake. It wasn't that good, and I instantly regretted it. 

Saturday was a pretty normal day. Rogier and I went into the city, walked around a little, but mostly lounged in the garden. Breakfast and lunch were normal. Dinner was schnitzel, fried potatoes and green beans. Healthier than Friday night, but the schnitzels were breaded. I really should start buying them natural and breading them myself in a healthier way. The potatoes were fried in olive oil, so that was a plus. I sautéed garlic in the olive oil and then covered the potatoes in paprika, cracked black pepper, cayenne pepper, and a dash of salt. It was delicious. 

Sunday was a fun day! We had plans to go on a long walk/hike.

This is me all ready to go. I filled my day pack with water, a quest bar, and some other necessities for in case of situations. We had plans to walk for about three hours, but ended up coming back in just under two. I had two pieces of toast with peanut butter and jelly and a banana before we left. 

We went 9.16km (5.7mi). It was a slow pace, but considering it's the first exercise I'd done in more than a week I felt amazing afterward. I ate my quest bar about an hour after we started. Since we had decided about an hour in that we wanted to head back I decided I wouldn't need it, but was feeling hungry so I ate it anyway. We were both hungry for lunch when we got back so we went to the grocery store and picked up some buns. I had a an open faced brown artisan baguette half with reduced fat salami and half with chicken breast. 

Saturday at the market we bought a whole chicken to have for dinner Sunday night. I love whole chickens. They're perfect for a nice sunday dinner, and there's always left overs. Tonight we're having some of those left overs for chicken burritos (chicken taco salad for me). I crushed some garlic and let it sit in olive oil for a few hours and then brushed the olive oil over the chicken. I added paprika, cayenne pepper, italian seasoning, cracked black pepper, sage, and a dash of salt, then cooked the chicken. 

look at that deliciousness

This is what my plate looked like: 

I made homemade gravy using the juice in the pan, an organic no-sodium vegetable broth cube, water and a bit of flower. Healthier than most gravies, but definitely an indulgence and not something I choose to do often. I made the mashed potatoes the same way I made the mashed sweet potatoes earlier in this week. They were perfect and so garlicy and delicious. 

Also, on Saturday I had an ice-cream cone while Rogier and I were in the city center. It was warm and gorgeous and I couldn't resist. That's when I realized that the problem isn't the ice-cream cone. The problem is that I had ice-cream after having cake on Friday night. So I've come up with a new plan. I'm going to try and eat salad twice a week for lunch and at least once a week for dinner. I'm going to try and reduce my carbs and bread intake. I'm also going to allow myself a once a week (maximal) indulgence. I'm going to try and spread it out over two weeks between indulgences, but it's summer and I love ice-cream on a gorgeous summer day. 

I hit the gym this morning, but I'll tell you more about that tomorrow, I've dragged on enough for today. 

Happy Memorial Day! It may not be a Holiday where I am, but that doesn't mean I don't get to remember the true meaning of today. 

 

Feeling Good

Yesterday was a really good eating day. My calorie count was 1,475 and I didn't feel like I was going hungry throughout the day. Overall I'm feeling good and am in a very good place about my journey. 

For my midmorning snack I had a quest bar- the cinnamon bun flavor. So far my least favorite. Disappointing. 

For lunch I made the chef salad I wrote about yesterday and man was it good. It was so filling and delicious and definitely hit the spot. 

It was filled with a normal crop lettuce, tomato, onion, egg, chicken, ham, and avocado. I topped it off with a garlic vinaigrette and it was so good, I was actually a little sad when it was all gone. 

I posted this photo on my Instagram account and a friend texted me and asked "how do you get your avocado so perfect?!" Answer- I have no idea. I got totally lucky and just happened to have a perfectly ripe avocado that didn't give me a hard time about getting out of it's skin. Avocados are a tricky thing, but well worth it. 

Dinner was also delicious. 

This is runder fink (beef meat), green beans and a sweet potato mash. I had never made mashed sweet potatoes before, but searched for a recipe that wasn't full of added brown sugar. I ended up adapting the Skinny Taste recipe. 

Recipe: Serves 1

ingredients

1 sweet potato (about 150-200g)

2 cloves garlic 

1 tsp butter 

1 tiny scoop of sour cream 

salt and pepper to taste

method

-peal the sweet potato and cut it into chunks

-boil until more than fork tender (I chose to overcook the sweet potato a little bit because I find that by doing that you can get a cream texture without having to add tons of butter, milk, and sour cream. Yes, you lose nutrient when you over cook it, but in the end those nutrients won't be covered in unnecessary fat) Also I have no idea how long I cooked mine for (sorry!). My cooking curse is that I never, ever use a timer. 

-drain the potatoes in a colander 

-add 1tsp butter to the now empty pan

-saute the garlic for about two minutes over low-medium heat (don't let the garlic turn brown or it will become bitter)

-add the sweet potatoes back into the pan along with your scoop of sour cream 

-mix together and sprinkle with salt and pepper (if desired)

My sweet potatoes were so cooked that I didn't really even need to mash them, I just kind of stirred them and they just came together. 

I highly recommend this recipe. 

Last night when Rogier got home from work I told him about how I entered 48 times to win a camera from The Freckled Fox and her sponsors. Of course, Rogier is an amateur photographer, and he's pretty good. So he taught me how to take better pictures on his camera. So hopefully some nicer pictures will find their way onto this blog soon. 

Thanks for following along on my journey :)  

Day 3, Week 2, and Rest

Bad news-I'm still sick.
Good news-my eating has been on track.

The cold from hell is still sticking around over here. I can't seem to shake it. Today is about 100% better than yesterday, but I'm still not feeling up to exercising. I got winded and started coughing while I was vacuuming our bedroom earlier. Not fit for exercise.

I'm okay with that though. I think my body is telling me it needs a break. I might not have exercised as consistently as I want to over the last 7 weeks, but my body has been through a lot anyway, if not physically, then emotionally and mentally. Having family and friends visit is great, but when they leave it takes a huge emotional toll. Living half way across the world isn't easy.

My ankle is also better, but because it's been swollen on and off I think I'm going to give it a rest until Monday. That's a full week since it was healed and that should be long enough for a full recovery. I'd rather take the next 3 days off then have to take another 3 days off next week and then 3 more the week after because my ankle becomes swollen again.

I've also been doing a lot of reading lately and pretty much all the research has concluded that diet is more important than exercise in weight loss. For awhile I thought that was crazy because I just added exercise and lost my first 25lbs. The next 10 I lost were a combination of exercising and healthy eating, but now that I'm stuck in this plateau I'm going to use the next few days to really focus on my eating. I've been doing much better, but with the slip ups this past weekend I'm still feeling like there's room for improvement. I'll get there. I just have to remind myself that this journey is a marathon not a sprint.

Yes, I have goals and an ideal weight, but what's more important is actually being on this journey and learning new things about myself and about life as i go through it.

Yesterday for diner I had a salad with grilled chicken. I sautéed some garlic in olive oil and then cooked the chicken. My humble opinion is that there's no such thing as too much garlic. I love it. I made pasta for Rogier and made a little portion for myself to go with my salad, but only had a few bites of it. I'm not really a big pasta person, unless it's at a real Italian restaurant, then I can't get enough. I'm convinced I don't like pasta because that's pretty much all my mom ate while she was pregnant with me. Crazy you say? Well, I also don't like bagels, which was her other food of choice.

Anyway, that was a healthy and satisfying dinner.

This was breakfast this morning. Bran flakes with a banana and almond mil, strawberries, a boiled egg, strawberries and coffee with almond milk. It was delicious. I measured out the cereal and almond milk this morning to double check that my portion size had been about accurate the past few days. It had for the cereal, but I was using a lot more almond milk than I thought, which is okay because there's only 13 calories in 100ml, but still I didn't notice a significant difference when I used less, so I'll probably keep measuring that out for the next few days. 

I'm planning on having a chef salad for lunch complete with cheese, ham, turkey, egg and avocado. I'm seriously looking forward to it. The warmer weather has me in a serious salad mood. I'm also brewing some cold green tea and some cold black tea. I love tea and drink tons of it in the winter. I'm a big fan of all the health benefits and want to start drinking more of it this summer. 

I entered a giveaway today by The Freckled Fox for a canon rebel t3i. I could seriously use a camera upgrade, especially so I can stop using my iPhone to take pictures for the blog. Fingers crossed, but I've never won anything in my life. Seriously I could be the only person that entered and someone else would still win. Not possible- I know, but still, you get my point. 

Week 2 Day 2 and Adjustments

I'll start with the good news. My weight this morning is 91kg. That's moving in the right direction.

More good news I made it to the gym four days last week even with my ankle acting up.

Bad news, I went a little off track with my eating plan and worse news- I'm sick. I have the worst cold I've had in a very long time therefore it's Tuesday and I have yet to make it to the gym this week.

My eating plan was going very well last week, but I did make some changes to it. I decided that I didn't have a dairy allergy and that eating cheese or greek yogurt would be fine. I will however be sticking to almond milk in my cereal and coffee. I also decided it was okay because I had been so hungry all the time and needed a high protein snack- a quest bar, which has milk protein in it. Since I changed this I've been much less hungry and overall eating less.

Friday evening we went to a friend's house for dinner. I had no control over what was being served, but overall it wasn't too bad. Very common in The Netherlands is what's called gourmetten. I'm not sure if I've explained it before, but what you do is you cut up meat and veggies into little pieces and everyone has their own frying pan and you cook what you want. We did this, only we did this with wok (stir fry).

See the little pans? How they're curved like a stir fry pan. They're adorable. 

This is what our table looked like. There was pork, beef and chicken to choose from. I stuck with the chicken and the beef. There were lots of fresh veggies to choose from-mushrooms, peppers, onions, leek, spring onion, and soy bean sprouts. There was also fried rice and noodles- neither of which were whole wheat, but I ate a little bit with each stir fry I made. The worst thing I ate was the sauce where the first ingredient was sugar, followed by glucose syrup. Overall it was a pretty healthy meal. 

This was one of my pans. See, just a little bit of rice, mostly veggies and meat. I also had two pieces of a white baguette. Overall I love wheat bread better, but I'm a sucker for a baguette. Having two pieces is a drastic improvement from how much I usually eat during things like this. 

Saturday things got even more off track. Breakfast started off fine with two pieces of toast. Saturday was my first real day of being sick. I had some symptoms on Thursday and Friday but Saturday was day 1 of torture. So I slept through most of the afternoon and ended up skipping lunch. I was too sick to cook and Rogier was drained from taking care of me (I'm not easy to be around when I'm sick). So we had fast food for dinner. Horrible, I know. I had a chicken burger and a sate roll (chicken with peanut sauce rolled into a crust and fried-delisciousness) along with some fries. I was surprisingly still within a normal calorie range after dinner, mostly because I skipped lunch. 

Sunday was better, but still not back on track. Rogier and I went to a flea market in the morning and it was beautiful. I desperately wanted an ice cream, but I didn't have one. We decided we would have bread with salads for lunch and BBQ for dinner. The salads were the unhealthiest part, filled with preservatives, but I did stick with whole wheat bread. Dinner wasn't horrible. We just had meat and the left over salads. 

Yesterday was better and back on track. I fell of the path for a few days, but overall I'm still feeling pretty good. I haven't had any ice-cream or processed snacks which was the main reason I'm doing this. 

Yesterday I went to the physical therapist for my ankle. Of course by the time I got there it was back to normal. She played with it a little, but couldn't conclusively tell me what the problem was because it was ok. If it acts up again I need to go back immediately so we can figure it out. 

I wanted to go to the gym today, but I can barely walk without coughing and having difficulty breathing, but toady is much better than yesterday so hopefully tomorrow I can get back into the gym. 

Day 4 and Frustrations

Today started with some frustrations. I had plans to go to the gym and take a body combat class, but yesterday evening my ankle started acting up again. I have no idea what's going on or what's wrong with it, but yesterday evening I was walking to the kitchen and all of the sudden it was painful and I had trouble walking. It's not drastically swollen and isn't painful to the touch and my range of motion is only slightly limited but I'm walking with a limp. 

I should probably go to the doctor, but nurses make terrible patients. If it's still swollen on Monday I'll go back. Boo. 

My weight is 91.8kg. Disappointing but not at all surprising considering the lack of exercise and amount of food I've been eating. I can't expect to fix 2 weeks of bad decisions in 3 days, but it'd be nice if that was possible. I've also been eating like there's no tomorrow. I've been sticking to my guns and haven't indulged in anything unhealthy, but I've still been eating too much. Yesterday my calorie count was 2,175. AND to make it worse, I was still hungry when I went to bed. Rogier pointed out that this happened back in February when I first recommitted myself to this journey. Hopefully it will pass. 

Yesterday for dinner I made pepper steak, potatoes and brussels sprouts. 

It was delicious. The steak was a perfect cut of meat with next to zero fat and it was crusted in pepper which made it spicy. I also cooked it to perfection if I do say so myself. Perfectly medium. Perfect in my opinion anyway :) I boiled the potatoes and then pan fried them in coconut oil with garlic powder, paprika powder, chili powder and cracked black pepper. 

I'm going to try and eat less today. I had oatmeal for breakfast with a banana and strawberries. I had a sliced apple with cinnamon for snack and for lunch I plan on having a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch. Today is a meatless day and egg salad is out because the mayonnaise we have is full of crap. So good old pb&j it is. 

Hopefully my eating will slow down and improve. 

Also hopefully my ankle stops hurting because I will be going to the gym tomorrow. 

Day 3 and A Cleaned Up Jambalaya

Today is day 3 of my detox/cleanse and so far everything is going great. My stomach and digestion issues are still floating around, but a friend of mine said it can take up to two weeks to resolve after I stop eating dairy. I'm secretly hoping they don't resolve because I DO NOT want to be allergic to dairy. We'll see. 

Last night I made jambalaya for dinner. Jambalaya is rarely considered a health food but I cleaned it up a little bit and it was delicious! The only thing that was a little unhealthy was the chorizo sausage I used: it had dextrose in it. You can improve that by using extra chicken, shrimp or a different sausage that's not so processed. 

Doesn't that look delicious? It's so easy to make, although slightly time consuming. 

My recipe wasn't necessarily authentic. Rogier can't eat tomatoes so I didn't used diced tomatoes.

Recipe: 

Ingredients (serves 2-3) 

2 chicken breasts 

1 cup chorizo sausage- cut into pieces (can sub for more chicken, shrimp or a different sausage)

250g (1/2lb) mushrooms

1 red pepper 

2.5 cups chicken broth-divided 

1 cup brown rice 

1 tbs cajun seasoning-divided (more or less to taste)

cracked black pepper 

oil (use your preference- because I was cooking with chorizo I chose to use a spray coconut oil because when the chorizo warms it realizes a lot of grease. If you're not using chorizo use 2tbs of the oil of your choice)

Method

• Cut the chicken into chunks 
• Heat a large frying pan and spray with oil- cook chicken until done (7-10min)
• Add the chorizo pieces to the chicken 
• While the chorizo and chicken are cooking cut the mushrooms in quarters and dice the pepper 
• Add the mushrooms and pepper to chicken and sausage 
• Sprinkle about 1/2 of the cajun seasoning and some cracked black pepper onto the mixture and cook for 3-5 minutes until the mushrooms begin to soften 
• Remove the mixture and set aside (you can simply place it in a bowl or you can set it on paper towels to absorb some of the extra grease)
• Add the rice to the pan and mix it in the left over grease 
• Add 2 cups of the chicken broth to the rice, add the remaining cajun seasoning to the rice and water, stir thoroughly, cover, and bring to a boil and then let simmer until 1/2 to 2/3 of the water is absorbed 
• After some of water has been absorbed by the rice add the chicken mixture back to the pan with the remaining 1/2 cup of chicken broth 
• Cover and cook until the rice is tender- add more chicken broth or water if needed 
• You can add more cajun seasoning at this point or extra cayenne pepper if you like your food spicier 

This recipe is made healthier than a regular jambalaya because I used homemade chicken broth and homemade cajun seasoning so it doesn't have any additives, and by using brown rice. This is the cajun spice recipe that I use. It's delicious. Homemade chicken stock is also ridiculously easy. You can easily google a recipe, but all I did was take the remainders of a picked whole chicken and put it in a stockpot covered in water. There were enough spices from what I had covered the chicken in that I didn't even need to add any to the water! Next time I will probably try and add more vegetables to the pot. Maybe I'll try some onion, spring onion, or even some broccoli.

One of my favorite parts of this journey is all the things I'm getting to try and experience, especially adapting delicious recipes to be healthier. 

Yesterday I went to the market and picked up some fruit and vegetables. 

One of those containers of strawberries is already gone..whoops 

I desperately wanted to by the cherries too, but I decided to wait until next week because I still have tons of fruit. 

Rogier and I also made homemade beef jerky yesterday. Seriously the stuff is addicting. I can't tell you how to make it because that's Rogier's project, but I can tell you that it's possible to do without a dehydrator and that it's more delicious than the crap you buy at the store. 

Tomorrow I have plans to go to body combat. It's a martial arts class. Thursday is usually an off day but I'm going to try and go 5 days a week to the gym during my detox/cleanse. 

Day 2

Yesterday's first day of detox/cleanse went pretty well. I did find myself being rather hungry after dinners so I had an all natural popcorn rice cake. I'm thinking I was hungry just because it was the first time I've worked out in nearly two weeks and my calorie count is back to a normal range, not the outrageous amounts I was consuming over the previous weeks.

This morning at the gym I did 30 minutes of cardio: 10 minutes on the treadmill (6 walking, 4 running) 10 minutes on the bike (levels 3/4) and 10 minutes on the stair climber. I then did my legs routine. I had to cut it short to make it to yoga at 9, but got through all of my squats and step-ups. I did 2 less sets of lunges and side lunges and 1 less set of sumo squats and narrow squats. Yoga went well. It was challenging. I definitely need to work on my flexibility. I'm going to try and add yoga into my regular rotation. I'm going to do virtual body combat on Thursday. I think I would rather do body pump but they don't have a virtual class and I don't pay for the live classes.

My eating is going well. Yesterday I had a slice of bread with ham before the gym. When I got home I had whole grain cereal with almond milk. Lunch was two eggs fried in coconut oil on toast with ham. Afternoon snack was carrots with peanut butter. I had chicken breast, broccoli, and potatoes for dinner.

Today's eating has pretty much been the same so far. I'm making jambalaya for dinner. Not 100% clean because I'm putting sausage in it, but nothing too bad. As clean as possible.

I promise to have pictures of that for tomorrow. I'm looking forward to making it!

I'm happy to be getting back on track. Today's goal is to drink more water because I think I'm dehydrated.

Day 1 of 7 (Times 3)

I know it's been awhile since I've blogged. Things have been incredibly busy here and I've had injuries and have been eating to my heart's content.

The week my Grandma and Aunt got here I had a back injury. When I first injured my back in September of last year I was told by my physical therapist to avoid the elliptical because of the way it moves my hips. That can cause my back pain. When I injured my ankle and my back was fine I thought that the elliptical would be a good compromise, but it wasn't. Apparently the elliptical is completely off limits for me.

I went out to eat 3 times in the week I had family here, twice to the same italian restaurant. It's amazingly delicious but not kind to my calorie count.

I won't go into details because we'd be here all week but I ate and I ate badly.

So today is my first day back on track. I'm doing a 21 day detox/cleanse. I didn't buy any products to do it. I'm doing it on my own. I generally think that if you eat healthy detox and cleanses aren't needed. I'm skeptical, but I am planning a tea-tox in July. More on that later.

Over the next 21 days (or 3 sets of 7 days as I'm calling it because it seems a lot shorter than 21) I will be restricting myself from:

Diary- milk, cheese, ice-cream, yogurt, quest bars :( and chocolate
Sweets- cookies, granola bars, granola (because as much as I like to call it a health food it's not in the quantities I consume), stevia, anything with added sugar (in reason) I will be doing my best to read ingredient lists and make sure that what I'm eating does not have ridiculous amounts of added sugar, which is difficult. I will be trying to eat real sugar and nothing that has added sugar substitutes
Alcohol- this won't be difficult because I hardly drink but I figured I'd throw it in for good measure
Grains- white bread, pasta, rice and other carb sources except for white potatoes- I'll give you my rant on why white potatoes aren't the enemy someday- in short it's not the poor potato it's the cheese, bacon, sour cream and butter that destroys it, or deep frying it.
Read to eat foods- nothing that comes from a box- in certain cases something that comes from a box that only has all natural ingredients will be allowed.
Snacks- no salty snacks, anything overly processed. I will try to eat only whole food snacks. Also my goal is to not eat after dinner. If I'm uncontrollably hungry I will eat a piece of fruit.
Meat- as far as deli meat for lunch I will only be eating ham, turkey or chicken breast. They seem less processed to me than salami and the others. I will be less strict on myself with dinner meat, sausage will be fine, but in moderation- once a week.

I think that's everything I decided on.

Tomorrow will be my first day at yoga. Last week I had family here and the week before that I was injured.

I made it to the gym this morning: 15 minutes on the treadmill (6 running, 8 walking), 15 minutes on the bike (level 3) and 10 minutes on the stair climber. Arm routine and abs.

More on my plans for the gym tomorrow. I'm sure I've bored you enough for the day.

The Good and The Bad

The good: my weight is 90kg
The bad: my weight is 90kg

I didn't lose any weight this month, but I also didn't gain any, so I'll take that as a win.

I weighed myself yesterday and this morning. This morning when Rogier saw me he said "again babe, really?" He's very much against weighing everyday and has threatened to hide the scale from me, something I asked him to do in the beginning of April, when I was in Amsterdam, and wanted to not weigh myself for 30 days.

My conclusion is that skipping the scale doesn't work for me. I haven't figured out how to change my mindset and let the scale control me, but on some level I think it does encourage me and help me, even if it also discourages me.

I measured today too, but they're a little funky, I've lost everywhere except my waist and my chest. I've gained there, but we ate a very salty dinner last night, chicken teriyaki so I think I might be a little bloated. I'll measure again tomorrow and see what happens, but I have lost 3cm from my hips (love handles).

I went to the doctor Tuesday for my ankle. He's as stumped as I am, but if the swelling comeback I need to take pictures and email them to him, but while I was there I had no swelling, no pain and full range of motion. Typical.

I've been taking it easy at the gym this week. Yesterday I did 40 minutes of cardio and 1/3 of my leg routine. I have family getting in tomorrow and we'll have guests for a week straight and I don't want to risk my ankle acting up and not being able to walk around with them. I skipped today and will go to the gym tomorrow and then again on Monday.

I've been cleaning like a mad woman today trying to get the house appropriate for company so I've worked up a sweat that way and have probably gone up and down the stairs as many times as I usually would doing 10 minutes of the stair climber.

I can't wait for my birthday so my parents hopefully get me a fit-bit 1 (hint hint mom).

I'm very excited to see my Grandma and my Aunt tomorrow and my Mom and Dad on Sunday!