March Mint Madness

Every March, every mint thing on the planet is being peddled in honor of St. Patrick's Day.  I love mint so I eat all of those items all month. And naturally, everyone who knows me, brings me mint treats on my birthday, which I inhale and wash down with a mint shake.  Then I have a sleeve of girl scout cookies for dessert. I can't figure out why I keep packing on the pounds...

My favorite mint items in no particular order:

Girl Scout Thin Mints (duh!)

McDonald's shamrock shake (I made a date drive me to three different McD's looking for this on my birthday.  It was sold out everywhere.  Weird...I haven't heard from him since....)

Mrs. Cavanaugh's Mindy Mint truffles/egg with my name on it (can be purchased at Harmon's which is dangerously convenient.)

Mint Brownies (at Kneaders, Food for Thought, home made...I'm not picky.)

Utah mint truffle bar (I eat these like a candy bar)

Junior Mints (in a pinch)

Golden Spoon mint frozen yogurt.

If I were smart, I would be giving up mint for Lent each year (the six weeks before Easter)...then I would look smokin' in my Easter dress. But I'm not smart..I'm hungry. Bring me more mint!

No Ifs. Ands, or Jiggly Butts (or arms)

About this time last year, I did Club Phat. It dang near ruined my life. So like an idiot, I am doing another weight loss competition again. I started last week. Honestly, I don't have a ton of weight to lose this time, I just really want to eat better, i.e. less junk, and be inspired to get in really great shape.

So my friend Kaari started a contest called Flab to Fit where we get points for working out and a point for every pound we lose. Simple. Which is what I love about it. No points for getting sleep, eating veggies, or drinking water. Which is good because I suck at all three. I love that you can get as many points as you want for working out and since I work out almost every day anyway, that one is easy.

My main goal in all of this is to lose five pounds (that I put on over Christmas) and firm up my lunch lady arms. I am a Warner. It is my destiny to carry weight in my upper arms (hi mom!) (Except Ashley, I don't know how she avoided chubby arms.) In fact, I got my body fat tested at the gym and it was 21% going off my leg and stomach measurements and freaking 26% going off the back of my ham hock arm! So I am going to be focusing on lifting more weight with my arms and eating less Oreos. Oreos=fat arms in my world.

So here is my plan (notice everything is moderation...I don't do well with hard and fast rules or strict diets.)

1. Get my can to the gym everyday for an hour.

2. Lift weights at least twice a week..focusing on my arms (increasing weight.)

3. Cut back on junk food. I have already lost 3 pounds in the first week by merely cutting back (not cutting out!) junk food. I have a serious addiction. I was eating a whore's breakfast of Oreos and diet coke and then going to work out. Insanity people! Now I eat oatmeal for breakfast...small changes make a big difference.

4. Get more protein in my diet...protein shakes, protein bars, hamburgers, Costco dogs (whatever..I don't worry about fat..for me cutting out the sugar and junk food allows me to eat whatever real food I want.)

5. I try to only drink the black acid (Diet Coke) when I go out to eat or when I really really want one.

That's it. Simple right? Six weeks and I am going to be a new woman. Let's DO THIS!

11 Things on 11/11/11

1. I met a guy at my gym's spooktacular who told me I look just like Keesha. I had no idea who he was talking about. I went home and googled her and found stuff that looked a lot like pOrn. Unfortunately, I kind of see the resemblance:




2.I am almost done Christmas shopping for my kids. I love shopping for them because they are so easy to please and I know just what they would love. This time of year, I have this neurotic condition where if I buy anything...(think underwear or a clock radio) for one of my kids, I have to fight to urge to save it for Christmas. Anyone else have this problem?

3. Buster is finally taking steps....not walking. But this is not nothing people! The kid is 18 and 1/2 months old and heavier than a load of bricks. He is one lazy mother and I didn't think he would ever turn the corner.



4. Snapfish has the best customer service on the planet. I don't know whether to be proud or ashamed to admit that I have called them twice in the past week to get price adjustments for various things. Both times, I spoke to some guy in India who I could barely understand but both times the dude totally hooked me up...yesterday I got $19.99 in shipping refunded to my account just because I called and asked him to do it.

5. I am the proud owner of a new yellow handbag! Thanks mom. Isn't it cute?!



6. I've got my eye on a Shellac UV nail dryer on Amazon for about 50 bucks. If I bought my own Shellac polish, I could do my own manicures and save a ton of cash. It usually costs 2o bucks to get a shellac manicure and that is if you are getting a Groupon deal and it doesn't include anything except getting your nails painted. So my friend Lisa recommended buying my own dryer and doing it myself...what do we think folks?


7. Are flower headbands still in style for adult women? I am guessing no. I was going to wear this to the Spootacular and then felt silly in it. These headbands are much cuter on Sammie.



8. I love Tiny Prints Christmas cards. This year, their selection of cards are colorful, modern and original. You will pay more, but they are the cutest. I went with Snapfish this year (thanks for the free shipping Rashan!) but I still think Tiny Prints are #1.





9. Ryan recently went on a field trip to a fire station with his preschool where they each got to hold the hose and knock down orange cones with the water. This was heaven for a little boy who is obsessed with being a fireman.



10. I love Fall and this year was no different. I love the leaves on the ground before they get raked. I wish it could be fall year round. Notice Luke is in his cub scout uni. I am his Akaela...for those of you not down with cub scout lingo..that is his leader. Shoot me now. I am trying to learn to love it.



11. Is it totally tacky to return a giganto unopened bag of candy to Costco? Good, because I am doing that today. The alternative is that I will eat the whole damn thing before Thanksgiving.

Club Phat

Buster

So Buster is 9 months old and he isn't the only one with a little extra chub around here. I still have 10 pounds (15 cough cough) to lose to get back to my normal weight. Usually, I'm not an all or nothing gal. I believe moderation in all things. But guess what? The weight hasn't been coming off and I'm tired of not wearing my normal clothes.

Last Sunday night, my friend Mandee emailed me about a Biggest Loser type competition called Club Phat that started the next day. And I agreed to it for several reasons.

1. I've got a solid 10 pounds to lose.

2. What I've been doing ain't working.

3. There is prize money at the end...the kitty may well get up to like 400 bucks.

Also, I like that this competition is not about just weight loss. You can't starve yourself and win this thing. You get points each day for doing a bunch of healthy stuff like:

no soda/no alcohol
no treats
getting 7 hours of sleep
no eating within 2 hours of bed
taking a multivitamin
drinking 48 oz of water a day
eating three servings of fruits
eating three servings of veggies
a point for each half hour you work out up to 3 points a day

You also get three cheat points a week to use if you mess up on one of the above things except you can't use cheat points for working out. I messed up twice and ate within two hours of bed.

At the end, the person who loses the greatest percentage of their body weight in addition to having the most points wins.

I already work out about four days a week but I've had to kick that up to 6. I also hate veggies but I'm not about to give up a point a day for that (did i mention how competitive I am?) So Sam has been buying me these big relish trays. I also chug V8s to get a couple servings there.



So here is the deal. I've been on the program a week and the first few days were the worst. I thought the no diet coke thing would be the hardest but I was wrong.

The no treats has damn near killed me.

But you know what? That is what is going to make me lose the weight. I will never O.D. on real food. Until I started this, I didn't realize how much garbage I was eating during the day. In fact, now that I'm doing this, I have struggled to find real food to eat. My biggest temptation came Friday night when I took my kids to Mrs Field's at the Mall. Oh how I LOVE those little nibblers with a big Diet Coke. That was a tough night but I pulled through. I have already lost a few pounds.

I even worked out every day this week except today (Sunday). I'm determined to win this thing. To be honest, if I lose the weight, I will feel like a winner regardless of the money.

I promise not to talk about this all the time. Is there anything worse than hearing about someone else's diet or workout plan? In the meantime, I'm going to go chew a piece of gum and look at all the veggies I don't want to eat...5 more weeks...