Ahhh... regroup..regroup

Wow! What a week! Seriously, have you ever had "one of those" kind of weeks where you can't even remember what you ate for lunch 10 minutes ago because you're so busy? I had photo shoots last week, a wedding shoot on Friday, 6 mini sessions on Saturday, a shoot on Sunday and one today (Thursday) I've been editing the pictures and training for my new job at Weight Watchers.. plus my babies have been on Fall break. So I have to make sure I've taken time for them. So, needless to say, I have struggled in a few areas this week. I really slacked in tracking my food and I didn't get to exercise as much as I am used to or as much as I would've liked too. Do you ever get like that? Where you're so busy or maybe something unexpected happens in your life and it just throws you off? How do you handle it? Something I've learned and something I say to myself often is, "Well.. this is life.. life happens and I can't be surprised at it." I've mentioned this before, but when you dedicate yourself to living a healthy lifestyle; exercising, eating right, taking time for yourself, it's pretty easy to regroup and get back on track. Honestly this is the main reason I am not for the quick fix lose weight type of diets, they might work for a certain time period, but in the end you haven't learned how to live it as a healthy lifestyle. Ok.. so today I regrouped and started tracking again and made sure I took some time for myself and exercised. I guess I could've just as easily said, "Oh, I'll just start Monday when the kids are back in school.." but I don't want my thinking to go that way. I see the slip ups I've had, so the key is to jump right back in as soon as I can. Towards the beginning of my weight loss journey, I would beat myself up if I slipped up and got off track. I wanted to be perfect at it. I wanted to always see progress on the scale and towards my goals. But as I went along, I learned that getting off track is good sometimes because through that, you learn how to get back on. There will always be busy times, there will always be vacations and unexpected events. We have to learn how to work through those, forgive ourselves if we "mess up", get back on track as soon as we realize we're off track, and maybe it will even cause us to be more focused on our goals. I also wanted to say, if this is your normal life, crazy busy-no time for yourself, you have to change that! You have to find someway to make time for yourself. I do believe we make time for what we want. And you need to make time for yourself no matter what! I'm not saying workout an hour a day.. but do something. Find some time to focus on what you should be eating rather than grabbing whatever you can because you're in too big of a hurry to think about it. The only way things will change is if you make those changes. I don't know the situation that you might be in, but I do know we all have things that we fill our time up with. I just want to encourage you.. take time for yourself. Stop letting the excuse of, "I just don't have the time!!" keep you from being healthy. Maybe start with just 10 minutes a day. Even if in those 10 minutes you prepare healthy snacks and write down a healthy menu for the week. Just do something more for yourself. So take some time, regroup.. get back on track.. and move forward. It'll happen again and again and again.. so don't let it stop you, just see it as a bump in the road and move on.
Don't quit!!!

Tis the season for challenges..

I love the fall and all the pretty colors it brings. The cool evenings, cuddling up under blankets. The excitement of the holidays.. so much to love about this season. But I have found the season also brings some challenges. I am not kidding, as soon as the leaves start to change, I go into this "I want to eat everything in sight" mode. I believe I'm going into hibernation mode.. It's not good. This is when those practical things I've learned and applied over the past few years come in handy.  So I figured I'd share my practical tips with you in hopes that as the challenges of the season hit you, you'll be a little more prepared. My best tip I can give is to be prepared. We already know Halloween comes first, CANDY, next Thanksgiving (oh, and if you're wondering, my birthday is on Thanksgiving this year ;) and following that, Christmas and New Years. I really don't know why they all have to be so close in the year. They really should've been spread out a little more! Preparation is KEY! I keep fruits and vegetables on hand, cleaned and ready to be eaten. I try my best to have the weeks meals planned out and shopping done. I find that the less prepared I am, the worse I eat. I say 99% of the time you can look in my purse and find a bottle of water and either an apple or banana. I try my best to be prepared "just in case." I try to stay organized with my daily duties, If I do this, I feel less stressed. Once again, the more stressed I feel, the more I am not thinking about my food choices. I also journal my food. I know, it sounds like such a pain, but it does help. I know for me, there's no way I'm going to remember everything I ate that day, especially when the season starts to get busy. I try to keep all the "bad" foods that cause me to over indulge, out of the house. I get the winter blues.. so I don't need to set myself up for a loss by having these in the house. I try to stay busy as best as I can.. I'm sure at least one of my rooms will be painted and made over during the cold season. I don't deprive myself, so if I want something I have it because deprivation is no fun at all. I just make sure I exercise portion control and self control. I'll find a few good books to read and schedule hang out dates with my friends. As far as exercise.. I don't let the excuse of it being too cold out keep me from getting outside to run or take a long walk. Once it's too cold to do that, I love using my exercise DVD's or taking a workout class. It's good to set goals. What do you want by the end of the year? Would you be happy to stay the same, only gain a pound or two or are you aiming for a weight loss? I think any of those options are fine.. it's just picking something to aim for.  So be prepared, set some goals, don't let the expected season cause you to get off track.. I don't think it's worth it. We can all end this season feeling in control and accomplished! 

What you put into it is what you'll get out of it!
Never quit!!! You'll get there!!!

The weight of your words

This last year my husband and I had to make a really tough decision concerning our oldest, Johnathan. He struggled so much in first grade last year, his reading/comprehension scores were far below average and he seemed to be struggling more and more the farther he got into the school year. We made the tough decision to have him repeat the first grade again. He and his sister are now in the same grade and I'm sure that was not easy for him to accept. I think about the defeat he might feel and possibly the feelings he might have about how "smart" he is. The other day I said to him, "Jache, you're such a smart boy!" He said, "I know I am, mom!!" I asked him how does he know he's so smart.. he said, "Because that's what you and dad tell me." It amazes me how much power our words can have. Think about it, when you see a little girl, twirling around in her dress and you say, "You are so cute!!" She will more than likely respond with, "I know!!" or she'll even throw out the fact that she's so cute without anyone even saying anything. Our kids believe they are smart, cute, wonderful.. etc. because we tell them so! Now think about yourself, what kind of words are you saying to yourself on a daily basis. Think about what you say when you look in the mirror. What do you say when you fall off the wagon? What do you say to yourself when your pants might feel tighter than they should? What about when you step on the scale and there's not change? Sometimes we can really beat ourselves up with our words and negative thoughts. Can you imagine someone coming to you and saying they put on a few pounds, or feel tired of losing weight.. or whatever.. can you imagine saying to them the things you might say to yourself? I'm guessing they'd never come back to share anything with you, ever again. We can be so hard on ourselves. I think about how we blame this or that for our daughters self image issues.. when in reality the very cause of some of it is what they hear their mothers saying about themselves. When we tear ourselves down.. we are teaching our kids how to do the same. I don't believe negative talk or thinking has ever moved anyone closer to their goals. It's time for a change. It's time to see how much you're worth and how strong you are and can be. Messing up is just a part of life, getting back up is what really counts. I think finding some positive things about yourself and writing them down is a great way to start! Say some positive things about yourself in front of your kids. Give yourself the pep talk that you would give me if I asked you for advice. I'd just like to challenge you in this area. Take a look inside.. see how strong you really are. See that you're something beautiful. Getting to a certain weight won't change your thinking on this.. this has to be something that changes before you hit your weight. You have to come to a place that you are satisfied with you are as a person. It doesn't matter what you look like on the outside.. it's who you are on the inside. Just give it a try. And if you can't find ANYTHING positive in yourself.. just ask me. I bet I can find something special in you!!!

Never quit!!!
Mel :)

The Itsy-Bitsy Spider...

The other day I hear this shriek coming from the bathroom, so I run in to find Jack looking over the sink crying and yelling. I peek over the sink, well because I'm a little scared to see what he's looking at, and I see this tiny little spider crawling around the inside of the sink. Jack is just freaked! He just stood there, refusing to move, refusing to kill it. I told him, "Jack, you're bigger than that spider, it can't hurt you!" So I did what any mom would do, I turned on the water and drowned that spider! It was an easy task for me because I know that it was harmless and within seconds we could take down that spider. Jack, on the other hand, just couldn't see it for what it was. I don't know exactly what he was thinking, maybe he was afraid, perhaps he didn't know that he could kill it by turning on the water.. or maybe he just didn't want to do anything besides allow it to keep walking around the sink and letting it scare him. I, of course, was able to relate this to some areas in my own life. I spent many many years trying to battle my weight. I bought different books, tried different diets I even joined a workout facility at one point. But time after time, I seemed to fail. It wasn't until I realized that I was bigger than the battle I was fighting. You see, once you can see that, then the battle is much easier. We have allowed food to control our lives for so long that it has become this GIANT object in our lives and we just sit there and allow our food habits to consume us. I don't believe that food is the problem. I believe it's how we handle our food. It's the role we allow it to play in our lives. So many of us allow it to comfort us, allow it to be our entertainment when we're bored, allow it to be a part of every celebration we have. Some of us have allowed our eating habits to be like that spider, and just sorta stay in our lives because we're either afraid to change our habits, possibly due to being afraid of failure, or we really don't want too change. If you really want to change and you really want to finally conquer this mountain in your life, then I know you can! It's pushing through those moments that you feel like you're not going to be able to do it. Those are just thoughts, they aren't facts. The fact is, it's just a little spider that we've allowed to look like something bigger than what it really is. The fact is you really do have the ability to turn on the water and drown it! You have the ability to walk away from the dessert table if you need too. You have the ability to throw ice cream in the garbage if you need too. You really can get up from the dinner table and not have seconds or thirds or... It just takes you realizing you can do it! So here's my challenge to you.. Don't be like Jack. No longer stand there and allow these "little spiders" to consume your life. Drown those suckers!!! ;-) Stop allowing yourself to be defeated by your bad habits. I'm rooting for you!!!! I know you can do it!!! :)

Slow down and smell the chocolate fountain

As some of you may know this already, but I am an assistant wedding photographer, so I get to attend a lot of weddings. This past summer I got to shoot pictures for about 27 weddings. So yes, I've seen my share of cake! I happened to be at this particular wedding that had one of THOSE DELICIOUS looking chocolate fountains! Of course our table was located right next to this wonderful-flowing-fountain of chocolaty heaven! Not sure if you can tell or not, but I am a fan of chocolate :) Lucky for me, though, my Weight Watcher leader had just talked about chocolate fountains in one of classes prior to this wedding. Thankfully I listen in my class!! She said she had a member in one of her classes that worked at a banquet hall that offered a chocolate fountain and the majority of the "chocolate" is made up of vegetable oil to keep the "chocolate" oil flowing. So now it's chocolate oil. Not just chocolate. It was kinda disappointing to me. Honestly, in my life pre-weight loss I would've still eaten from that fountain. I would have heard the information, probably even said, "Oh man, that's terrible!" and then forgotten about it and still ate some anyways, just saying! I had decided I wasn't going to even try it. I didn't really want it unless it was straight chocolate. But something else happened, as the chocolate fountain started flowing I started to smell this odor, sort of like sweat. I am serious! Of course I had to investigate where this smell was coming from and I discovered the smell was coming from the chocolate fountain. I was shocked, "Why hadn't I smelled this before?!" And just so you know, I was at another wedding later on in the season that had a chocolate fountain and it smelled bad too. You know why I never smelled it before? Because I never slowed down to even smell what I was eating. Eating carelessly, not even thinking, that's how I used to eat. I saw something I wanted and ate it. I can't even remember paying too much attention to the nutrition labels. Can you relate to this at all? Shoving food in your mouth and barely even tasting it. Finding a balance in life is important. Eating food that you find to be delicious is perfectly fine! I am still a food lover! But being aware of what you're eating AND enjoying it, is important. So slow down, smell the chocolate fountain. Read what's in your food. Find out what you're eating before you put it in your mouth. And enjoy ;)

I'd like to make a deposit..

I don't know, maybe this is just how I'm "wired" but giving back brings me so much fulfillment. I remember walking in to my first WW meeting and thinking, "Ok, IF I can do this.. IF I can overcome this weight issue I've never been able to conquer, then I'm not only going to do this for myself but for those around me." It's just something I do, I try to make deposits into other people's lives. There is no point in doing something if you're not able to impact someone around you. During the beginning of my journey, I had to focus on myself first. I had to figure this weight loss thing out. I even tried to keep it a secret for the first 30 pounds, but that was mainly because I was afraid I'd fail and I didn't want to look like a failure in people's eyes (yep.. you're talking to a people pleaser here.. it's not a pretty sight) But slowly, those around me started to notice the changes in me and wanted to know what I was doing. So that's when I started to share and hope that those that needed it would grab a hold of whatever they needed from my experiences. I guess for me, it helps me in several areas. One, it helps me keep my eyes off of myself. I have walked through frustrating and discouraging times during this journey but knowing that others were counting on me to finish, it helped keep me going. When you're making deposits into other peoples lives, it sorta helps keep your eyes off of your own problems. It's also a great accountability! If someone is asking me for advice on what they should eat or how to keep going when they don't feel like it.. well I better be doing those things if I'm going to hope someone else will! I have the wonderful privilege of waking up in the mornings and opening up my FB messages to find people sharing with me their exciting news about their journeys. I get to talk to those that just need a little boost of encouragement or a little push to get them past a hurdle. I feel so lucky to be able to do this. I do believe we all can do this! And why not? This is such an amazing thing you're doing for your health, life and future.. and another persons health, life and future can be greatly impacted by you. I think even in our struggles we can help others. I want to encourage you, if you're having a hard time on your weight loss/getting healthy plan.. then try making some deposits into others. Find someone that might need a workout buddy and set a date to workout together. Maybe you'll find someone that just needs some encouragement. I know lots of people that simply need some cheerleaders on their side! You might not see that you've come far enough to help someone else, but just the fact that you're trying is good enough to help others! Make a deposit into someones life, expecting nothing in return except the satisfaction and joy knowing that you've helped someone else. Thank you to those that have allowed me to deposit into their lives. By you allowing that, you've helped me in so many ways! Keeping our eyes off of our own "ho hums" helps us not be so down about the things that might not be going our way. And as always, thanks for reading :)

If I want it.. I get it!

Have you ever been at the mall and saw something you just had to have? Maybe it was an outfit, a pair of shoes or a super awesome new TV?! I definitely have!! How convenient is it that you can purchase these things on borrowed money!! You can take out credit right then and there, if approved of course, and you don't have to wait. We have what we want and most of the time we get it when we want it. We don't wait and save, we spend money we don't have. I like to say, we can be over indulgers :) I think I just made that word up!! We really do have some out of control habits. We like to get what we want and we don't always think beyond that moment. Look at the economy, that explains our consequences to our spending habits.  So it should be no shock that two thirds of U.S. adults are overweight or obese. We lack this thing called self control. And it's literally killing us. Believe me, I have been there! I ate what I wanted, how much I wanted and when I wanted. If I wanted a a double cheeseburger...every day, I ate one... every day. I didn't think about the consequences to my actions. And I said I cared about the consequences, but apparently not enough to do anything about it. My little sister, Enam, recently asked me if losing weight was hard. I had to take a few minutes to think about this question (it was a really great question, Enam :) And really, the act of losing weight isn't hard. It's gaining and keeping the ability to have self control. I think when people think of "diet" they think, "UGH!!!! Now I can't have ANYTHING I want!! I have to give up ALLLLLL my favorite foods!!!" And that's not true at all!! We can have whatever we want. We don't have to give up our favorite foods at all!! I think the problem is that we can't have it all the time, every day, whenever we want it! Well you can but with that comes some unwanted consequences. What do we think will happen to our body if we don't take care of it? I have learned that the more you say no to something, the easier it gets. You build up a resistance to it and caving in is less likely. You learn your weaknesses. I'm not saying self control is easy.. it is quite the opposite, especially when you're just building that character trait. But I will tell you, the longer you keep it up the easier it gets! I often think about my kids and how I have changed their lives by changing mine. I want my kids to grow up with the ability to show self control. Not just in the area of food but in all areas. I think it's ok to over indulge, at times. But if we have a lifestyle where over indulging is an often habit, that's where the trouble comes in. I'm telling you, if you will build up the ability that you already have inside you to have self control.. if you stop caving in to every little tasty craving you have.. it will get easier. I want to encourage you, do not give up because you feel like it's too hard to tell yourself no. Don't cave in to that lack of self control you have. Think about what you're doing and the consequences that comes along with it. I am telling you, you will build a very important trait inside yourself that will come in handy for the rest of your life.


Self control is the ability to control one's emotions, behavior, and desires in order to obtain some reward, or avoid some punishment, later.