Loving my Wii Fit!!

One of my biggest downfalls/setbacks is my motivation to workout and exercise. I get bored so easy and then I lose interest. We have a treadmill that my husband uses several times a week and at first I was using it too but as I mentioned, I get BORED BORED BORED. I need my workouts to be fun and to go by quickly without me realizing the time LOL yeah I know I'm like a kid LOL Anyway a while back we bought a Wii Fit and I used it a couple times but really thought it was more for my kids than me. Then a couple days ago I read a blog post (I can't remember who it was) talking about how she used game on her Wii Fit to spice up her workout and I started to think about my Wii in a whole new light. So tonight I pulled out the balance board and the Wii Fit Plus disc and actually turned them on.

I have always wanted to go to a yoga class but I am still very self conscious so I always chicken out. Well I I designed my own 20 minute Yoga class, I figured that would be a good start, and then my son and I spent about hour playing the balance games. When I put it all into my WW activity tracker It came out the 3 activity points. Not a ton of points but hey, it's 3 more than I would have had if I hadn't played some games with my son. I had fun and I burned some calories, isn't that what a workout is for? If I had made myself walk on the treadmill for 45 minutes I would have earned those same 3 activity points but this way I earned them and enjoyed it! That's the biggest difference AND I am looking forward to doing it again tomorrow! That hasn't been the case for the treadmill in several months now LOL. I may actually even be able to get a good night sleep tonight. If I am sore tomorrow I will know it was a great way to workout. I LOVE the Yoga and can't wait to do it again!

On a related note, we will be getting an xBox Kinect in the next month or so and I want to try to find some fun workout type games for that as well. I think Zumba with the Kinect would be a LOT of fun! I have to figure out how to keep both my Wii and the new Kinect hooked up to the TV so I can play them both LOL Oh Oh, I may be turning into one of those video game geeks, oh well, if I do I will be one hot geek LOL

Cindy 

~~Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil~~

I'm a Recipe Maker!!

I can't believe it!! I actually created my very own recipe! Well sort of, I tweaked a recipe from Emily Bites. I absolutely love her banana, chocolate chip, oatmeal muffins (as does my whole family)! Well my husband  is a big fan of apple cinnamon oatmeal and I thought that it would be super yummy for him if I could make him some apple cinnamon oatmeal muffins, so I played around with Emily's recipe and viola I came up with an apple cinnamon oatmeal muffin that my hubby loves and it is healthy and Weight Watcher's friendly!



Ingredients:
2 cups old-fashioned oats
1 cup (2 packages) of Apple Cinnamon instant oatmeal 
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon sugar 2 egg whites
1 egg
1 cup fat free milk
1/4 cup of apple juice 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 small red apple, peeled, cored, and diced
Directions:
1.    Preheat the oven to 350. Lightly mist 12 or 18 cups in a muffin tin with cooking spray.
2.    Combine the dry ingredients n a large bowl and stir until thoroughly mixed (I use my hands to break apart all the brown sugar lumps). 
3.    In a separate bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients (NOT the apples). Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until blended together. Fold in the apple pieces.
4.    Spoon the oatmeal mixture evenly between the prepared muffin cups (I use an ice cream scoop). Bake uncovered for 22 - 25 minutes or until oatmeal is lightly browned and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

18 oatmeal singles. Weight Watchers Points plus = 3 per muffin 
12 oatmeal singles Weight Watchers Points Plus = 4 per muffin


*Points Plus calculated using the recipe builder on weightwatchers.com

Cindy 

~~Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil~~

Another setback but a really great day!

Well the jar system is not working as well as I thought, it is really frustrating and stressful actually. It seems like no matter when I try to do something like this everything that can go "wrong" does. My older son ended up needing to go to the doctor and get a prescription, which is all part of the monthly budget but since the budget is broken into weekly amounts now it immediately threw me over budget for the week which meant I had to pull money from other areas which would then put me over budget again. Then my youngest son came to me and asked me if he could have money to go to a concert and since he rarely asks for anything like that I can't say no. He's a great kid and doesn't ask for much so of course I'm going to do what I can to give him the money for the concert. So I have just decided to adjust my monthly budget and continue to go from there. Its a system I have been using successfully so I'm OK with that. I'm not sure why I thought it needed to be changed. 

I do have to say that  had a really great day today! My daughter lives 2 hours away and I don't get to see her very often. Even when she moved out to go to college she lived just around the corner. She and I have always been very close and when she lived close by we would go to lunch together and go shopping. about a year ago she moved 2 hours south of me and now I only get to see her every once in a while and that's usually on birthdays and holidays. We never get to just go have lunch and go shopping. My husband and I like to go for drives and today we decided to go for a drive to an outlet mall about and hour away from our house. On the way there I was texting with my daughter and told her where we were going and she said she said that her and her boyfriend had some shopping to do to and that they could meet us at the mall! I was so excited to get to have a day of shopping with my baby girl! We had lunch and then we spent all day at the outlet mall shopping and talking and just having a great time. I was SO proud of myself too because we went into the Dooney and Bourke outlet store AND the Coach outlet store and I didn't buy anything at either of those stores! I did buy a few kitchen gadgets (like $16), a comfy pair of jammies from Jocky for $30, and some slippers from Easy Spirit for only $9!! I felt really good that I resisted the temptation of my biggest weakness - PURSES!! The best part of the whole day was just shopping with my baby girl. Se is so grown up now, she is 23 years old and has her own house now. It was really cool to watch her and her boyfriend discussing decor for their home. :-)

Anyway, even though my jar system didn't pan out the way I had hoped, and actually caused me more stress LOL, all in all today has been a great day! 

Cindy 

~~Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil~~

I am testing this out. Trying to post to my blog via text message

Blogs and Jars

I have spent the last couple days looking for Weight Watcher related blogs and I am so excited with the ones I have found. I have to say my favorite so far is called Emily Bites she has a ton of awesome easy Weight Watcher's friendly recipes! It is a true treasure for someone who is working hard to maintain. I am so thankful that God seems to have answered my prayer to unsettle me. I have found myself getting back into many of the habits I started when I started Weight Watchers. I actually had 4 servings of water today and only 2 Coke Zero's. I haven't gone over my Points in a several days and I had been going over several times a week. 

As far as finances go we are beginning the "jar system" next week. We have broken our monthly budget down into a weekly budget. I have taken 5 jars and labeled them with the main things we spend money on, transportation, food, entertainment, clothing, and everything else. I also included the weekly budget amount for each category. My husband and I will place receipts or notes into the appropriate jars and at the end of each day we will tally up the total that was spent in that category and make a note of what's left for that category. When/If the budget limit has been reached for that category we will flip the jar over to remind us that there is no more money for that category. If we have to go over for an "emergency" for say... needed groceries, then we would have to take the money out of one of the other areas. I am hoping this will really help us keep track of our weekly spending. I got this idea from the show "Till Debt Do We Part" and thought it would be a great way to really keep track. I'll post how its working once we get it up and running. 

Cindy 

~~Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil~~

Unsettled

Well if you have followed my recent blog posts then you have probably figured out that I am a Christian and I am a very spiritual person. That being said I turn to God quite often when I am experiencing difficulties. I decided that this year I wanted to have a closer relationship with Jesus and so I began to search for a way to connect every day through a daily devotional. I was seeking a daily devotional that would speak to me. I had downloaded samples of several different ones onto my Kindle and none of them "fit" so I did what I do and I prayed "God, please lead me to the devotional that has what I need and that has the messages You want me to receive over the next year" and then I started looking some more and I found some pretty good ones. Then I came across one titled "Made to Crave Devotional" by Lysa TerKeurst, and it caught my attention. I downloaded a sample and began reading it. Come to find out it is a devotional for women who are on the healthy eating/weight loss journey.

I read the first devotional last night and it was titled "Unsettle Me" and after reading this I realized that this is what I need! I have settled in to my new size, my new healthier lifestyle, and my constant debt. I have found then when things "settle" we tend to begin to slip back into our old ways and that is exactly what was happening to me.  I realized that in order to move forward I needed to be "unsettled" I needed to go back to when I was unsettled and was beginning my weight loss journey and beginning my "money makeover." So I prayed for God to unsettle me and to help me keep moving forward. I'm not going to say that some miracle happened or that the heavens opened and all the answers were revealed to me LOL of course not, that's not how God works. I have to lean on Him when it is time to make decisions about what to eat or how to spend money. I have to be unsettled, I have to keep from settling in until I know I am ready to settle in to the right routines and choices.

~~God Bless~~

Small setback with a touch of success

Well, after being off school for 2 weeks and sleeping in until like 9:00, 10:00, and even 11:00 on a couple of the days I was slightly out of my mind when I thought I could start off by waking up at 5:30 in the morning. I had high hopes and even had my alarm set for 5:30, but when I woke up around 3:30am I knew there was no way I was gonna carry myself out of bed and on to the treadmill in 2 hours. SO instead of 7:00 I reset my alarm for 6:30 which I did honor, when it went off I only hit the snooze button once LOL. I figure I'm using baby steps to get us out of debt and build up our savings account I should use baby steps to becoming a morning person as well. I didn't get to get on the treadmill but I did get my devotional done. I should be on the treadmill right now, but instead I'm busy blogging and thinking about making a bag of caramel popcorn. LOL.

I did have a couple of  small successes with controlling my spending over the last couple days. As I said I have been on vacation for 2 weeks and today was the first day back to work and I was/am completely exhausted. I had to stop at the grocery store on my home from work. Now right next to the grocery store is a Subway and a Chinese take out place. Normally I would have just picked up dinner at one of those places and justified the spending in my head somehow but instead I went right past them and made a yummy Stuffed Pepper Soup for dinner. It was perfect for such a cold night (29 degrees here in Florida!!) and I had everything here at my house to make it.

My other financial success was I discovered an auction website called Listia (http://www.listia.com/signup/1037727). I have always been a big eBay fan and have bought and sold on eBay for a long time now but eBay charges a fee to list items for sale and if you win an auction, of course, you have to pay for the item. Well I discovered Listia through a friend and it is a place where you can list things to give away and then other people bid on the auction with credits (not money) and then at the end of the auction the highest bidder gets the item and you get the credits, which you can then turn around and use to "buy" stuff you want. the best part is a LOT of the sellers offer free shipping so the items are really free! I have listed some of my old clothes, shoes, and purses and have gotten quite a few credits which I then used to get myself some new-to-me clothes. It is an awesome system and it is totally free (unless you win an auction that requires you to pay shipping) This is a great alternative to shopping on eBay and it doesn't cost me anything!! I've gotten several  shirts, jeans, and dresses all for free!

Trying something new

First off I am so excited to say I AM GETTING A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW!! Last night, at midnight, my oldest son proposed to his girlfriend and she said YES!!! My baby boy is getting married, it just doesn't seem real!!

OK, onward...

I am not usually a morning person, which means on work days I usually get up at 7:00 to be at work by 8:00. Sometimes I push it and sleep until 7:15. Fortunately I teach at a school that's only about 5 minutes from my house. Well since I sleep until 7:00ish I am rushed in the morning, I have to get ready for work and eat quickly. I have no time for anything else. Then by the time I get home from work I am tired from teaching all day and I don't want to get on the treadmill, I barely want to cook dinner. Soooooo I am going to try to change that, starting on Tuesday I am going to work really hard to get up earlier so that I have time to eat a good breakfast, maybe do a 30 minute walk or run on the treadmill, and even have time to do a quick morning devotion. I think that this will make my day a lot less stressful. So my plan is to wake up at 5:30, eat a nice breakfast while doing my morning devotional, then a 30 minute walk on the treadmill. That puts me finishing everything by around 6:30 which means I have PLENTY of time to get ready for work. I think it will be a good way to start my day each morning but I know I am going to be SO tempted to not do it and to go back to sleeping until 7:00ish so I have to work really hard to do this. I will be sure to post Tuesday afternoon/evening about how well I do on Tuesday morning.