BB40: Week 5

Not gonna lie. It's been a rough week. Traveling and sticking to a plan, any plan, is always difficult. Whether it's an eating plan, an exercise plan, a daily schedule, it always suffers on the road. This week was no different.

We left Wednesday for our state basketball tournament and didn't return til Saturday. That's over half the week being out of sorts and out of routine. I did my best to eat healthy, but that proved difficult due to our schedule some days. I didn't get to exercise, but DID get in plenty of steps, so at least that part of my progress was solid. One day I walked over 3 MILES all inside the sports facility! LOL. I obviously got nothing accomplished on the home front and struggled to find time to spend in the Word, but did manage it all but 3 days.

When things are "off" for me, whether it's for a day or a whole week, I like to reassess and figure out how to make changes so that the next time is better, so that I learn something. It's my way of attempting to make something positive out of what could be seen as negative and make me doubt myself. This time, I've realized that one thing I could've done better was to PLAN. I simply assumed I would be able to find a healthy option wherever we went. However, the times we were stuck at the sports facility didn't offer any great options. If I had planned ahead, I could've brought healthy snack or meal replacement options with me. Baggies of almonds, a Zone bar, trail mix pouches or even just a few apples would've been simple to pack and a huge help.

So, the plan for this week--work on meal prep. I'll be honest, I'm not really much of a "plan ahead" type of person. I'm more of the fly by the seat of my pants and make it work, type of girl. My husband just loooooves that about me. (Not really--he's the uber planner type.) So even just the idea of meal prep doesn't sound appealing. However, I know that when I'm hungry, I tend to grab the easiest, closest thing. So I need those to be healthy options. I need to have meal choices in place that will keep me making good decisions, while allowing me minimal effort in the moment. Zone bars have been HUGE on this front, and are a great option on the go (which I am frequently with 5 kids). But there are days when I'm actually at home, but still just as busy and need a quick meal option.

Some easy ways to have healthy, quick meals are: pre-cooked, grilled chicken, fresh fruits and veggies and healthy crockpot meals. Crockpot meals are super easy to portion and reheat at a moment's notice, grilled chicken takes only minutes to heat up, and if the veggies can be cut up on the weekend, they are that much easier to grab in a hurry. Today I will make up a list of easy prep meals that will work with my schedule, and get a plan in place and started. I've done once a month cooking before, so I fully realize how one day of work and planning can really pay off in the end. I'm excited to see how much this helps in the long run--because 5 weeks has flown by and I'm not sure where it's gone!

Here's to planning, prep and pushing myself farther--and that much closer to my goals!

Blessings,

BB40: Week 4

How is it February already?? I mean, it seems like just last week it was Christmas break! Now that I am actively tracking my days and weeks, it is becoming more and more apparent how it's so easy to PLAN to do something, only to have it slip away...and wonder weeks or months later how on earth I let all of this time pass with nothing to show for it! I have covered my closet door with post-it notes numbered 40-1, counting backwards. At the beginning of each week I take one down--so that I have a visual representation to remind me how far I've come and how much longer I have til my goal date. It would be easy to look at those and think..."I have so much time to get this done. This will be easy!" But yet I look at them now and realize I'm already a month in and I'm trying to figure out where all that time went.

The thing is, making excuses is easy--especially from day to day when life gets so busy and we get into our routine. But I'm TIRED. I'm tired of having great plans time and time again, only to look back and realize I never implemented my plan, or never stuck to it, and here I am weeks, months, YEARS later and nothing has changed. I'll be honest--I don't have just a little baby weight to lose. Y'all--I'm still carrying around the baby weight I gained with my almost 17 YEAR OLD!! Now if THAT doesn't motivate some of you to get your butts in gear and make those changes NOW, I don't know what will! The reality is, it's NEVER too late to start. It's NEVER to late to make yourself a priority. As moms, it's sooooo easy to get caught up in taking care of our people. And that is a good thing!! But part of taking care of them is taking care of US. Think about it--where would your family be without you? What would their days look like? How would your husband (or wife) do it all without you? If you're a single parent--who would raise your child(ren) in your absence? Because THAT'S WHAT COULD HAPPEN IF WE DON'T TAKE CARE OF OURSELVES. They need us. They need us physically present as much as they need us emotionally. And if we don't make it a priority to take care of the ONLY bodies we've been given--we could easily leave our people, the ones we love more than life itself, to face life without us. I've wasted too many years making excuses. My family AND I deserve more than lousy excuses.

I added a free app to my phone this week--it's called My Fitness Pal. I've used it before but deleted it a while back when I wasn't actively using it. But I decided to download it again this week because I realized I needed to pay more attention to both my eating and my steps. I need to know that I'm ACTUALLY eating as well I think I am. It's so easy to add foods to my food diary so that I can see just how my food intake affects my end goals each day. It counts my steps for me if my phone is on me (which it nearly always is since I have a teenage driver, LOL). And I set it up with my goal weight and how much I wanted to lose each week, so it set my calories accordingly. It's not something I'm super strict on because, again, I want a lifestyle change...not a diet where I'm counting calories. But it helps me maintain an overall picture of the foods I can eat more of and the ones I need to eat less of so that I'm consciously making better choices overall. It's a HUGE help for me!

I managed to purge my pantry this week! I know, I realize I did not say that I finished purging any of the other rooms that have been started! LOL. I moved to the pantry because I literally ran out of places for my groceries because my children have a habit of leaving empty boxes in the pantry or just shoving things in there. If it's not organized, it's simply not big enough to hold all of the food we use as a family of 7. So periodically I have to purge and reorganize and it lasts for all of 3-4 weeks til my kids destroy it again. Such is life. But for now at least, it looks good! We have our State Basketball Tournament this week then we are done with basketball until til the AAU season starts in a month or so! I plan to use that extra time to finish the purging I've started as well as to tackle the remaining areas of the house. Our neighborhood has a garage sale in the Spring and in the Fall and I plan to join in this Spring with all that we are purging! We are soooo close to being debt free and every little bit helps!

Now that I have my War Room/Area figured out, I want to have some sort of organization for my prayer lists I will use. This week I plan to come up with the categories for each list and get them each on a separate sheet of paper. Then I will get them hung up and leave a pencil nearby so that I can add to each list as needed! I'm super excited to get finished with this project soon and have a visual reminder of prayers answered!

This has been such a great week--I managed to keep off the weight I've lost so far, I can feel myself having more energy, and I have been SO challenged in my devotional time! If you haven't done so already, I encourage you to download the You Version Bible App! It's completely free and comes with hundreds of devotionals, multiple Bible versions to choose from, and even the option to follow other people/join them in conversation for encouragement and accountability! It's by far my favorite Bible app of all time. It makes spending time in the Word that much easier!

I don't know where you're at in your journey to a better you--I don't know if you've started, if you've been on it longer than I have, or if you've already arrived at your goals and you're just maintaining your freedom in a healthier lifestyle. But I want you to know, even though I don't know your name, I pray for each and every one of you that might read these words. I pray they encourage, uplift, motivate and comfort at just the right time. I pray that God uses the words He puts on my heart to somehow, in some little way, make your life just a little better today. And I pray that He is working on you daily, as He is with me, so that we are becoming exactly who HE created us to be!

"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."           ~Ephesians 2:10

Blessings,