Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

As many of you know, I have been competing in a Biggest Loser competition with a bunch of my friends. I spent most of the competition sitting squarely in second place and had given up any expectation of winning. The six week competition wrapped up this past Sunday. 

Guys. I won!

I am so surprised and happy. I honestly felt like the biggest winner already because I had consistently lost weight throughout the competition adding up to a great total. Stay tuned for a post revealing exactly how much weight I've lost, along with a summary of how I made it happen. I may even post before and after pictures if I don't chicken out ;)

This competition was so inspiring to me that I have already started asking around to see if anyone wants to start another round sometime soon! I want to keep this weight loss ball rolling!

Anyways... Sorry for this random, short post but I'm super pumped that I managed to win!

              

Chicken Veggie Weight Loss Soup!

Biggest Loser Results - Week Two

Happy Tuesday! Sorry for being late with my results this week! For last week's results, click here. It has been a wonderful but busy weekend. We took a trip to Chicago where we got to visit with a dear friend, then have a crazy Passover Seder with a bunch of my family. I started off strong, staying focused and on track, but I had a few hiccups during the middle and end of the week. I continued to use the My Fitness Pal app to track calories and worked out everyday except Sunday and Saturday. The weekly challenge was to drink at least 8 glasses of water a day. Luckily I had no problem with that as I've limited myself to only drinking water and coffee.

Farmers Market Hack

I love farmers markets. I love that the items are local and fresh, from produce to homemade soaps and lotions to dairy... The list goes on! The problem is my commitment level. Our local farmers market takes place for a couple hours on Thursday nights. Every week I think about going, but there is always something else going on, like it's during dinner or swimming lessons or there's homework to be done. I'm ashamed to admit that I've only made it there once.

Biggest Loser Results - Week One

Happy Sunday! I can't believe this challenge has already been going on for a week! Oh, what a week it has been, in the best possible way. I went into the week with a solid plan and I feel like I stuck to my original goals fairly well. I used an app called My Fitness Pal to track all of my calories and exercise which allowed me to feel in control of my day-to-day intake. In addition to our weekly weigh ins, there are also weekly challenges. This week's challenge was to do at least 30 minutes of exercise every day.

Have Your Own Biggest Loser Competition!

Happy Saturday! Did you do anything fun today? Here in Indiana I woke up to a deck covered in snow with some very droopy flowers in the yard! My sister and I tried to go get pedicures, but the place was jam packed so we decided to wait until a weeknight. The rest of my day has been spent planning for a Biggest Loser challenge that begins tomorrow.

How Can I Help?

Our Prenatal Testing Rollercoaster

Detox Bath - Feel Better FASTER

Last Thursday morning I woke up with a heaviness in my sinus cavity that told me I probably had a cold coming on. On Friday it had only gotten worse! By Saturday, I decided that I needed to do something to try to knock it out quickly.

So, as I often do with my problems... I took to Pinterest. I was already thinking a relaxing bath sounded nice, so I was hoping to find ideas for things to add to my bath that would help. I found great suggestions from The DIY Guinea Pig, The Bewitchin Kitchen and Sunshine Southern.

Chiropractic for Infant Reflux

Olivia was 9 pounds 1 ounce when she was born! Despite the fact that she was a big girl, she immediately had problems gaining weight. When we were leaving the hospital they told us that she had lost more than 10% of her birth weight, so we would have to drop into her pediatrician's office in 2 days for a weight check.

At that appointment, she had gained a little weight but not enough for them to feel comfortable. They scheduled us to come back in the next week for another weight check. Thus began a cycle of going to the doctor's office once a week for weight checks.

Ch-ch-changes Week 3

It has been a crazy couple of weeks and I'll be honest, I could be doing a lot better at making my weekly changes! I'm going to really focus on sticking to these goals this week! I have still been doing fairly well drinking my water, but I have not met my goal every day. The yoga has also been going pretty well but I have only managed to do either the morning or evening routines, but not both. Boo! I stink. This week I am going to make a change that doesn't require me to add anything extra to my day, just do something differently! That way, hopefully I can make the water and yoga higher priorities!

Ch-ch-changes Week 2

It has been a week since making the change to drinking at least 64 ounces of water daily. Overall it has been going really well! One challenge that I did have was the change in my schedule over the weekend. Without the time constraint of getting Gavin to school and Paul leaving for work, I typically let our schedule go a little wonky. Both Saturday and Sunday I failed to meet my goal of drinking all 64 ounces. That being said, I am not one that lets a bad day get me down. I will just keep on keeping on and eventually it will be normal for me to drink that much water every day.

I have been brainstorming ideas for what change I wanted to introduce this week. I knew I wanted it to be some sort of exercise, but I couldn't decide what. There are so many options. YouTube videos, walking the neighborhood, using one of the many Pinterest pictorials, you name it! I finally decided to bring back something that used to make me feel really good in my body. A couple years ago, I had a yoga routine that I would do every night before bed. It didn't take a long time, but it did make me feel stretched out and helped me to get a better quality of sleep. Starting tonight, I will be doing the exact same bedtime yoga routine that I found at Pop Sugar Fitness.

Ear Candling- Pros, Cons and Tips

Ear candling is a very old form of eastern medicine. I first heard about it while working as a massage therapist at a local spa. The owner decided to start offering it as a treatment that could be added on to any spa service. All of the staff got to try it so that we would be able to describe it to the clients. I was pretty amazed at how clear my ears felt after having it done. I liked it so much that I bought some to bring home and use on Paul. He also felt a big difference and was a really big fan. Over the years we have occasionally bought ear candles to use, typically whenever we found ourselves in health food stores. It has always been an enjoyable and helpful experience.

In doing some research to prepare myself to write this blog post, I was overwhelmed to find out that there is an extremely negative view of ear candles by the medical community. It is alleged that there is no benefit and it is basically just a danger because of the open flame. Then you have the positive websites that claim that ear candles not only clean out the ears but also balance the whole body and create overall good health. I've always thought it was somewhere in between. I have never felt that using an ear candle will solve whole body health problems, but I do feel a difference in my ears after using an ear candle. My ears typically produce a lot of wax and it really does seem a lot better every time I've done it.

So... With all that being said, Paul and I had a great time candling our ears the other night :) If you decided to go against all of the anti-ear candling rhetoric I found online, these are tips and instructions on how to do it!

Ch-ch-changes Week 1

Olivia is 8 months old! This time has absolutely flown by and we have been enjoying every second of it. That being said, I am still carrying around all of my baby weight. Unfortunately, I am not one of those people who loses all of the weight from breastfeeding. I wish! In the past, I tried to make healthy changes in a big burst. I would change my eating habits, start trying to work in exercise and try to drink more water all at once, then burn myself out quickly. In the hopes that I can actually make some new good habits, I am going to make my changes using baby steps. Every Tuesday I am going to pick a new change or habit to start.

For the first week of my ch-ch-changes I am going to work on drinking more water. Some of the benefits of drinking plenty of water include weight loss, higher energy levels, healthier skin and less digestive issues, as well as keeping you hydrated for exercise. The average human body is made up of 75% water which is why it is so important to drink enough!