Week 2 is done!  I saw a few pounds lost, even if it was probably only water weight.  Still...progress is progress!

A few takeaways from the week:

• I really should push myself to hit my goal of 11,000 steps.  
• Trying to remain low carb when going out for happy hour is VERY hard.  Let's just say I failed on Thursday.  Thank goodness that cider beer was delicious.
• Since I did so badly on Thursday, I tried to make up for it on Friday.  I did 2.5 miles on the elliptical and stayed within my carb limits of 20g net carbs.  Happy to say that the plain fried chicken wings fit into the diet!
• Next week, I'll try to incorporate different items into the diet to have a little variety.
• Just because I break the rules of my diet doesn't mean I plan on giving up!   

If you're interested in seeing how I'm handling a low carb diet, here are some of my previous posts.

One of my favorite parts about being creative is the act of documenting life as it happens. 

I like to read old journals/scrapbooks and relive my memories twice.  Sometimes I come upon old notebooks with a couple of pages of notes about my life at the time and it's just plain interesting.  A lot of the time, I don't even remember writing them, but something on that page will trigger a memory. 

I like to dream that, one day, Aiden will read through the scrapbooks I've put together about him and he'll smile at them, reading about his early years and how his mama saw and interpreted his life.  

My first weekend doing low-carb hasn't been too bad.  It really does help if we stay in instead of going out to eat because I can easily control the number of carbs I eat.


Just like last week, I've written down exactly what I ate and the number of steps a day I've been doing. 

A few takeaways from my first week:

• COFFEE.  This has been my go-to solution for reducing my need to snack.  There's something about the act of sipping a hot beverage over a period of time that kind of takes away my cravings.  Plus...I just love coffee.
• The longer I'm on this diet, the less I really have felt the need to snack.  I am a compulsive snacker when I'm bored so I just now either sip coffee or take a couple of laps around the office.
• I don't feel as hungry anymore after a meal.  In general, I just feel more satisfied.
• I find myself craving sweets even though I'm not a sweets-eating kind of person.

 
This year, our 4th of July weekend started on a Friday and I wanted to do an activity that was more focused on fun for Aiden rather than just running errands.  Since he really enjoyed watching the fish at Sea World in Florida, I thought the National Aquarium in Baltimore would be a lot of fun for him.



I liked that everything was indoors and it was easy to navigate for an 18 month old.  There were a lot of "wow-wows" at the sharks and lots of pointing at the fish almost as big as him.  Funnily enough, the escalators were probably one of his favorite things in the aquarium.  Each level is connected by an escalator which crosses over the big sea pool on the first level.


 There were a lot of levels and many different types of aquatic life.  It's been a long time since I'd explored the aquarium, but we were all pretty surprised at the other habitat exhibits that we could visit, like the rain forest and Australia.  Aiden was in love with the colorful birds and even the reptiles.

 


The last exhibit we saw was located in the adjoining building and it housed a couple of dolphins and my favorite display, the jellyfish!  I don't know what it is about those floating squishy animals, but seeing them swim around in the water just fascinates me.  Kind of like being mesmerized by a lava lamp.  One of the hands-on displays in the main building actually allowed us to touch live jellyfish which was pretty unique.  I had never experienced that before.
  

This was a very fun trip for the whole family and I can't wait to visit again when Aiden is older!

Did anyone else have fun plans for this past weekend?  Did anyone do something special to celebrate our nation's independence?  

I love this quote.  There are so many times when I feel like I've become a dry lake bed.  All those ideas I used to had all over the place, they just up and disappeared.  I find myself sitting at my desk, staring at some new supplies that just arrived, and I can't come up with anything.  Does that ever happen to you? 

But like anything else...

Creativity is like a muscle. It needs to be exercised. It needs to be used.

It's not surprising that I have no ideas because I haven't been practicing coming up with ideas. Here's to using more creativity in my life.  Here's to building up my creative endurance!

On another note, I hope everyone had a safe and fun 4th of July weekend! 

A few years ago, I had started a low carb diet in an attempt to lose weight.  It was great for awhile!  I lost close to 20 lbs in a couple of weeks and some of my less fat clothes were starting to fit again.  Then I hit a plateau on the weight loss and things stayed stagnant for a long time.  On the other hand, Nestor continued to lose weight.  There's nothing more discouraging than having someone who started the process with you, did the same exact things as you, and is all of a sudden moving farther ahead than you.

So that really sucked.

And then I got pregnant and had my sweet baby boy.  My weight at the end of my pregnancy was at an all time high of 230 lbs.  Yikes!  Thankfully, breastfeeding is a weight loss miracle waiting to happen and I got back down to, and much past, my original weight of 199 lbs.  The lowest I was able to go was around 165 lbs.  I hadn't seen that weight in years.  It felt really good.

At around 9 months, I decided to start feeding Aiden with formula and reduced the number of pumping sessions.  This also reduced the number of calories I was burning and my weight crept back up pretty quickly.



So here I am today back at 199 lbs.  Whoa...feels scary stating my actual weight out here in public.  But here I am going to try all over again to lose it.  My ideal weight would be around 130 lbs so I have quite a bit to go.  I plan on beginning a low carb diet again based off the Atkins diet starting in Phase 1 (Induction).  During this go around, I'm also plan to pair it with more daily activity as monitored by my Fitbit Charge.



I had tried this whole Fitbit thing in the past, but that sort of fell off to the side after a while.  This time, I have a little more motivation to move!  Several of my coworkers have also gotten Fitbits and it's been a lot of fun joining the workweek and weekend challenges together.  Lots of smack talk going on throughout the week.  Somehow, having a bunch of people trying to beat me really motivates me to move.  I still have my off days, but I try and make myself move so I'm not dead last.



And then there are weeks where I totally rock it and hit some all time highs of over 100,000 steps in 7 days!  To hit this all-time high, I was literally jogging in place at 10:30P on a Sunday night trying to beat my co-worker.  I was not about to lose! 

This is Week 1 for this diet and I'm hoping I can stick to it for a while.  It really is a big change in how we're eating since a lot of it is preparing meals at home.  In case you're thinking of starting a low carb diet as well and are curious about what kinds of meals you can have, I've outlined my week's menu below.  I've also included my step totals just to give you an idea of the amount of activity I actually do.  My actual daily goal is 11,000 steps and I really only hit that once this week.  Shame on me.   

A couple of notes about this week:

• I started the diet on Monday.  Next week I'll post what I ate for the weekend.
• I was in training the first two days of the week and it shows with the iced coffees I bought from Dunkin Donuts.  Gotta stay awake!  I also kept my steps up by doing laps around the building during our breaks.
• Some good snacks for me were thin deli slices of smoked turkey and swiss cheese that I rolled up and dipped into a little mayo and mustard mixed together.
• Wednesday was Nestor's softball game so I was on bedtime duty that night.  Explains the Baconator from Wendy's.  That is not a normal thing.  
• Friday was our normal day off and we spent it at the National Aquarium at Inner Harbor.  I feel like I should have researched more on what I could eat from Cheesecake Factory.  Nestor was just craving really hard for something sweet so we indulged in a shared slice of Low Carb Cheesecake.  I chose the Spicy Cashew Chicken and tried to remove most of the breading before I ate the chicken.  I only ate about 10 cashews and had steamed broccoli instead of rice.  This was obviously my worst day for following the diet plan.

 All in all, I think I did pretty well for my first week.  I lost a few pounds already, but I know it's pretty much just water weight.  Still...seeing those numbers drop even just a little makes me feel good. 

Have you also started a diet or are struggling to stay on it?  Have you joined the Fitbit craze and are tracking your steps?  Let me know if you want to join up on a challenge!  Weight loss is always easier when shared with others.