CONFESSION~

Hello friends...

It has been a while since I have blogged, and here is my confession...

1.  I started eating sugar on Easter and have not stopped since
2.  My motivation was lagging as the end of winter kept holding on to my favorite season of all, SPRING.
3.  I have been quite stressed at work
4.  I have been worried about my beautiful children and hoping they will all find their happy spot.

Whew...done!

Now that I have gotten that off my chest, let me tell you some amazing things...
1.  I have been going to a lunch-break class at my work.  I am lucky enough to have a Sports Training department downstairs in my very building.  They have 30 minute lunch classes.  They switch off between Circuit Training, Weight-Lifting and Spin.  I am getting stronger every day and kept up in the spin class this week.  It is hard work!  I go back to my office with a red face and out of breath, but oh it feels so good to get strong!

2.  Sammy my wonderful little niece has been teaching Lynsie and I, along with a few of our kiddies some incredible lessons each Sunday!  She is becoming a life coach of sorts, and she has been helping us tap into our potential.  I love getting to know myself better, my kids, Lyns and her kids as well, and Sam has been great!  We have made vision boards, written down what we really want in life and execute it, we have a little drawing we each made of our own body with enpowering words in there that I look at EVERY morning to get those in my head...holy cow, it works!  Guess what?  I AM AMAZING...crazy huh?

3.  We have been eating healthy meals around here.  It is hard to cook for just a few as Riley and Jocelyn are the only ones home right now, and Riley is only here 1/2 the time.  We make it a point to sit down and enjoy dinner and conversation.  If you are caught with your phone at the table it gets taken away!  For those of you who know me well, you know that I have an addiction to my Iphone...eek ( this is a confession post, right?)

4.  Alot of people have been complimenting me on my weight, telling me that they can tell I am losing. I dont care how many times a girl hears that, it DOES NOT GET OLD.

5.  Guess who is turning 47 tuesday?  ME!  and guess who is going to greet 48 at 130 pounds...you've got it...ME!  I will never be in the TERRIBLE TWO HUNDREDS AGAIN...ONEderland...here I come!

Goal for this week:  Eat clean, stay focused, exercise 6 times, love my family and myself~

SATURDAY...

There was no family work out scheduled for today, so I took it upon myself to look through other motivating blogs to see if I could find a good plan for training for a 5 k I signed up for in June.  I read some great ideas!  I am going to take a few plans, tweak them for my age, level of fitness and I will post my finished product here tomorrow.  5k..HERE I COME!

So exercise today will consist of a Rockin' work-out party in my living room with my fitness tapes.  Sometimes I like to do that, because I can shake my booty all I want, dont have to get dressed, and I can hop on the WII and have them tell me that I am still obese.  It doesn't bother me anymore, because I look at that cute little cartoon character and I tell her..."I cant wait for the day when you will say..hmmm, she is not obese anymore, she is healthy."  IT WILL HAPPEN LITTLE CARTOON LADY!

I started my day off with a yummy smoothie with 2 cups of baby kale, an apple, a date for sweetness, a spoonful of coconut oil, almond milk and whey protein powder...

EAT CLEAN WITH ME TODAY!  It feels so good!  Take it one day at a time.  Just tell yourself that you are going to feed your body healthy, strengthening foods and drink your water...just today.  Tomorrow you can tell yourself the same thing.  I think this is an important approach, because if you have one day where you don't do well, that is only ONE DAY!  You can start over the next day...trick your psyche...

One more thing...take a few minutes today and clear your mind, and just breathe...deep breathes...cleansing breaths.  Refocus on why you are important and why you need to treat yourself well

Namaste

Family Workouts!

We have had two official family work-outs, and they have been a blast!  I was sooooo excited because I was able to go the Saturday a week and a day after Riley's surgery.  It was a welcome break, and I was SO excited because...I was down 5.9 pounds. OH YEAH BABY!

We did a killer circuit training both saturdays at the Junior High where my sister in law Sher teaches in Spanish Fork.
The first week we had a mini lesson from Amber that was great. She talked about childhood obesity and how important it is to have healthy children and the benefits.  ANIKA won the challenge, so she kicked our butts Biggest Loser style with push up's and these other crazy things I forgot the name of.  Then we pumped the music HIGH and rotated from upper to lower body weights then did a bit of aerobics in-between to keep our heart rates up.  We ended with a jog/walk around the halls of the school.
The second week we had an incredible mini-lesson by Sam on vision boards and our homework was to make one....SCORE!  Emily told a story about a guitar she put on hers before Christmas before she and will were dating.  She woke up on Christmas eve and decided to take HER guitar and play and sing at the mall.  In a few hours, she had made MORE than the 400.00 goal she had set...and got the guitar.  Put your vision board up!  Divide it into 9 squares, like a phone pad.  Dont worry about making it fancy.  Put it right where you can see it when you wake and when you go to bed.  Look at it straight on for a few minutes morning and night and visualize smells, sounds, tastes, feelings of obtaining what it on there for you.  I CANT WAIT TO ACHIEVE AND OBTAIN THE THINGS on my board.  I changed mine a bit after this lesson, because my 9 things were too general.  I put more specific goals and things.  I will post a pic soon:)  Steve won the challenge this time, and he kicked our trash with burbees.....UGH!  I felt them for days...that is a good thing, right?  Another killer curcuit work out:)  I am starting to feel muscles I didn't think I had.  WOOT WOOT!

I love this time with my family working out and getting strong!

Hello!  Welcome to my journey.  My name is Kathleen McDonald.  I am 46 years old and I started a road to health on September 12 of 2012.  My cute niece Amber started a biggest loser contest called "Fab to Flab in 12".  I was at my highest weight of 253.9.  I was on blood pressure meds, diabetes meds, cholesterol meds and downright unhealthy.  I think having to weigh every week switched a light on in my head that made me think a bit when I ate.

Another thing that really helped was trying out for the first play I had been in for 25 years.  I was in the "Nightmare on Broadway" for Payson Community Theater.  At try-outs, Sam (another cute niece) and I talked for a few hours about mental and physical health and so many cool things.  She had me take this test about how I felt about my body and where I store things...VERY INTERESTING...

The first 12 weeks I think the play practice and dancing and being on stage really helped me realize that exercise and moving my body felt good.  I also really love to dance and sing and it was so much fun to share that time with Nathan and Steve my nephews, my brother Craig and his wife Sher, Sam and Malaina my little great niece...Hmmmm...I felt like I had some self esteem, something that I have not had much of in the last few years.

I got married in 2007 to a wonderful man named Jeff McDonald after dating for a few years.  It is hard to get married when you are older.  I love Jeff and he is a great guy, but we have been through a few VERY HARD YEARS.  Stress got to me and I would hide things in my desk drawers to eat.  It didn't help that I sit next to a big candy store in my office.  I would get stressed and there was a peanut-butter snickers right there 4 feet away to make me "feel better."

I have 5 amazing children that I love dearly.  They have had some battles of their own thru my divorce, melding families, some addiction problems, health problems and major surgeries and illnesses.  Every time one of my children was having a hard time, I would stress, take it personally in a bad way with the way I treated my body, and it was all adding up.

I lost 23.7 pounds in that 12 weeks.  I still ate sugar during that time, but I was a bit more conscious of what I put in my body, and I really stepped up the exercise.

I didn't do well over the holidays:(  I am a great cook, and the treats we made for our neighbors were pretty darn good.  I had my fill of sugar cookies, magic bars, buck-eyes, chocolate covered pretzels etc...wow, I just didn't feel well after I ate like that.

I am not perfect, but I am on a journey that is taking me to where I want to be.  My goal weight is 135, and I would like to be there by next Christmas!  

I am going to log my journey here for a help for myself, a journal, and to hopefully give some hope and advice to anyone who needs it!

Cheers!

Kathleen:)