Well we have almost completed week 2 of our moderation “diet”.  Or shall I say moderation eating habits.  Almost 2 weeks ago, I started taking control of my eating and this week I added the gym to that mix.  I signed up for Snap Fitness.  I love it because it is a 24hr gym, no contract and there was no sign up fee.  It is only $34.95 for a single membership and $54.95 for a joint one.  It is small but it has everything I would need or use.  It has the cardio machines I like and a variety of weight lifting options.

I have entered in to weight loss this time around with a little more knowledge and realistic thinking.  Last year when I jumped in I was so nuts about counting calories and exercise and in the long run it wasn’t very realistic.  I was eating next to nothing in fat.  I wasn’t eating very much at all.  I spent a lot of time worrying about whether I would make it to the gym everyday and spent a lot of time online at MyFoodDiary.com logging my food and making a meal plan.  With 4 kids that is just not something I was willing or capable of committing to. 

I won’t be able to give up sweets forever, I like cheese and pizza and all the things I shouldn’t.  But would I be able to never eat a candy bar or bowl of ice cream again, NO!  

So the key to my success is MODERATION!   Tony and I have started this together.  We are charting our progress on a weekly basis.  Although I weight myself daily just to make sure I am on track, I only count my weight and number once a week.  By numbers I mean fat% and h2o%, both items my scale will tell me.  I am no longer thinking of my health in terms of a number.  I am not going to worry if the scale tells me a high number, it is going to be based on how my clothes fit, how I feel and my fat pounds.  I set a specific number for my fat percentage and I will achieve that rather than a specific number for my weight.  

Basically what we are doing is alternating our days, low calorie days followed by a high calorie.  Well actually right now our schedule is Monday and Tuesday arehigh calorie days, Wednesday is low, Thursday is high and then Friday/Saturday and Sunday are low calorie days.  Once a week on Monday we will have sweets.  It is a high calorie day so we will put a bunch of calories in to a snack of our choice.  Lately it has been Krispy Kreme donuts.  Or it may be brownies (for Tony) and chocolate chip cookies minus the chocolate for me.  That way, we have something to look forward to and we don’t “fall off the wagon”.

So week one was a pretty big success.  I lost 7 pounds.  I don’t remember of that how much was fat pounds though.  What I do know is that this week I think is going to be good too.  Last I checked and calculated (in the middle of the week) I would have lost about 4 pounds of fat.  That is awesome. 

Well tomorrow is weigh in day so I will update you on this weeks progress.

Since the weather has been cold, Tony can’t really go outside and work on his car.  He loves working with his hands, whether it’s working on a car or building something.  I think it’s great he’s handy! 

Well we are starting to get Nicki’s room together.  I spent the last 2 days painting it and Tony worked on her bed frame.  It turned out really cool.  It is a wood frame and then I bought her a bunk bed mattress.  I will buy her some cool accessories for her room too.  I bought this really cool fluffy rug that matches her comforter. 

So now that he finished the bed frame his next project is a new kitchen table.  The one we have is round, wobbly and not very big.  I want a rectangular one.  So he is going to build a table.  I am so totally excited.  We decided to make the top out of cheaper wood and then cover it with ceramic tiles. I think it will be awesome because we are going to make a cool design on the table.  Hopefully by the time he is finished with that it will be nice outside and he can go work on his cars.  LOL!  Keep that man busy. 

It has not been bad not having cable. It’s been a couple weeks and I am sort of loving not having cable.  I get a lot more stuff done around the house.  I don’t even think Nicki really cares either, she has been watching a lot of shows and movies on Netflix.  They have this cool “watch instantly” option for some shows and movies so we can watch them directly on our computer.  Pretty cool. 

 I browse the internet a lot too and watch movies online.  It sometimes sucks though because my laptop can be slow sometimes.  It also tells me the laptop memory is low.     I was just trying to watch a show on ABCFamily.com and the buffering was taking too long.  So I can’t watch the show right now. 

All in all I love not having cable.  My house has never been cleaner!  LOL!

Whoever said that money can’t bring happiness must have been on crack, lol.  I certainly didn’t win the lotto but so far 2010 has been really good to us.  I posted about how we got a car for Tony which is just wonderful.  We think it is going to be really good on gas so that will hopefully save us some money.  Plus I get my truck back. 

I surprisingly got a child support check in the mail.  It has been at least 4 yrs since I have received anything.  It wasn’t much but still it was something. 

We also received one of Tony’s W-2′s in the mail today.  We are waiting for one more and that may be tricky to get, only because the people that work there SUCK! 

It is a good thing that we got a car because I have an appt every week for the next 5 weeks.  LOL!  I am excited for Nicki because on Tuesday we are going to the Ortho to see if she will be approved (through our insurance) for braces.  She has some pretty crooked teeth and she deserves straight teeth and a pretty smile.  I wonder if her teeth are too crooked to get invisalign braces.  When I did a search to get info about them, Orange NJ invisaligninfo came up.  I live somewhat close but I certainly won’t be driving to New Jersey every month for Nicki’s braces.  As it is I have to drive an hour to get to the closes Ortho.  Nicki is super excited about getting braces. 

Let’s just hope our luck continues in a positive direction.

Things sure seem to be going our way lately which makes me think “it’s about time”.  We have had some bad luck over the years financially.  When we moved to Tampa from South Florida we had to get rid of one of our cars which left us with only one.  So for the last year we have had only one car, leaving me stuck at home everyday.  I don’t ever really need to go anywhere except dr. appts and I try to have Tony take off those days but it’s just nice to have 2 cars. 

Well we finally, yesterday, got that car from the lady at Tony’s work.  The lady told Tony that it didn’t work.  He was totally prepared to have to rebuild the engine.  To his surprise when we picked the car up, we jumped the battery and the car started right up.  So from what Tony can tell it only needs minor repairs, a new windshield, maybe some brakes, a tune up and other small repairs.  It shouldn’t cost us much and the best part is she gave him the car.  That’s right I said FREE. 

I will need to start looking at insurance online so we can get the car insured once we fix all the minor repairs.  We may just go with our insurance company but I do want to compare rates.  I am just excited that things seem to be going our way.  Maybe there is good in store for us in 2010. 

Tax time.  I call it catch up time.  LOL!  Every year for as long as I can remember by the end of the year I have fallen a bit behind on bills or something needs to be bought.  This is the time of year that we put money back in our savings too.  It’s also the time that Tony and I buy our “Christmas” gifts.  LOL!  We usually spend all the money we have available for Christmas gifts, on our children. 

Well Tony is actually going to get the car from the lady from his work.  We are getting it tomorrow so we will need money to fix whatever is wrong with it, within reason.  I also need to get a new bed for Nicki as she is moving to one of the smaller rooms that would not fit her full size bed.  We also want to put money back in the savings.  One of the other things we need is a new monitor or TV that can do both.  The projector we bought a couple years back, from Costco, finally took a shit.  It works but the picture is just really crappy.  We don’t have a lot of space in our room for a TV so we want like a flat screen TV that we can also use as a computer monitor. We would really like a HD one if possible.  One that makes the actors face so clear that we would be able to see if they needed to use a blackhead extractor. LOL!  Nothing to big, maybe a 32″ or 36″. 

I am also thinking of starting back up as a Stampin’ UP! demonstrator.  I would really like to make a business out of it instead of as a hobby.  Well I would like both but ultimately I would like to make a little money from it. I love crafting and scrapbooking and how cool would that be to make my hobby into a money maker. 

Other than that we need to put money away in savings.  I hate not having a dime anywhere in case of an emergency.

On Monday Tony and I started our “diet”.  Ya know I can’t even call it a diet because we are still eating the same foods we used to just in moderation.  When I lost all the weight last year (65 pounds to be exact) it took 4 months and I was very strict with my eating and exercise.  Unfortunately for a lifetime that was not a realistic way to do it.  Going forward, after losing all the weight, I certainly would not be able to continue eating like I was and working out as much as I was.  I let the weight loss consume my days, I spent all day logging and calculating my caloric intake.  I worked out, in the beginning, for several hours a day.  With 4 kids now that is just not realistic.

I have come to the realization and acceptance that to be healthy it needs to go by fat% and lean fat not by the number on the scale.  I need to lose a good deal of body fat.  So as of Monday we started on our way.  We have a couple high calorie days and the rest are low calorie days.  Yesterday was a high calorie day and it wasw honestly hard to eat all the food I needed to.  Today is a low calorie day and those days are a little more difficult.  I need to eat around 1338 total calories.  I will probably eat a little more though because I had my YUMMY breakfast burritos today and that is about 500 calories.  I forgot that on Monday, which was a low calorie day, that I ate oatmeal for breakfast.  Oh well.

The other thing is I have actually been able to drink 64 ounces of water in a day.  That was really tough for me, I am not a big water fan.  Now that I have done it I almost always drink all that before dinner and end up drinking more for dinner.  My face has cleared up so nice from drinking all the water.  I mean it was never bad before, no breakouts or anything, it just looks healthier.  Which is good because then I won’t need anything like exposed acne treatment. 

I will also be joining a gym.  I had to find the one that best fit our situation.  We don’t have daycare or a second vehicle so if I go to the gym it would have to be at night after Tony got home.  He doesn’t always work the morning shift.  Basically I would need a 24hr gym.  I looked in to Curves. I liked how they have a fitness routine specifically for each member, their hours sucked though.  Then we have an Anytime Fitness. Obviously 24hr and the monthly price was decent but they had a $60 security fee.  Plus the fee for the security pass, not sure how much that was.  Then I found Snap Fitness.  They have the same monthly fee as Anytime but no sign up fee.  There is a $20 fee for the security card.  Plus it is only $20 more a month for both Tony and I to go where Anytime was just double the price, no discount. 

So we will see how things go after week one.  So far I can already tell a difference in how I feel.