keep on keeping on.

This was me all week!

-1 pound!

Temptations were high this week.  I feel like every day at least one student was coming into my classroom in the afternoon offering me a piece of cake, a cookie, or a cupcake.  It's a standard practice by the kiddos at my school to share their leftover birthday treats with the other teachers on the floor.  I don't know what it is, but I have a really hard time telling the students no--like somehow me telling them "no thank you" will hurt their feelings, or make them less likely to want to share their treats in the future.  Crazy, I know!

When one of my former students brought me a piece of cake, I accepted, took a bite, and threw the rest away.  That one bite was delicious.  :D  It's all about balance, right?

My sister-in-law was hosting another weight loss challenge, this time 2 weeks long, but I decided to opt out.  While I always want to hurry along my weight loss, I've got a really steady pace going right now, and I feel like I shouldn't mess with it.  But only losing a pound a week also isn't going to win me any contests either.  :p

My Wednesday Night Workout

I hardly worked out this week.  My back has been hurting a lot more lately, and didn't really feel better after my chiropractor visit on Monday.  I even asked Justin to switch sides of the bed with me to see if switching up the mattress would help alleviate some of the morning soreness I'm experiencing.

I struggle with the balance between pushing myself to work out even if I'm sore, versus trying to work through a pain in my back and making it worse.  Bleh.  I only got 2 workout videos in and 1 long walk with Adalei.  I need to force myself to do more walks.  It's easy, Adalei likes riding in her stroller, the weather is always nice, plus, I can usually hit my 10,000 Fitbit steps if I walk at night!  There's really no reason why I shouldn't, other than the couch is comfortable and reruns of The OC are a wonderful guilty pleasure for me as of late.

See you next week!  I'll be posting my first round of results pictures.  I'm weirdly exciting and also nervous to compare where I was 2 months ago with where I am now.

Current weight: 182.8 lbs.

Pre-pregnancy goal: 7.8 lbs. to go!
Total weight loss: 12.2 lbs.

❤️ Kayleen

planning.

-1 pound!

34 school days left.  I can't wait to be off for summer.  I can't wait to work out in the middle of the day instead of yawning my way through it after Adalei goes down for the night.

I figured out if I can keep up my one pound a week loss, I'll be back at my pre-pregnancy weight by the time we head home to visit family.  That will also be right around my 9 month mark, meaning I was able to get off my baby weight in the same amount of time that I put it on.  (And really, I gained more weight after I had Adalei...ugh.)

I'm constantly trying to seek the positive.  I find myself examining myself in the mirror after a shower and thinking to myself, "I think my belly looks a little smaller."  Walking in Target yesterday, I caught a side glimpse of myself in a mirror and thought, "Maybe my upper arms aren't as big as they used to be."  I still have a long way to go, but celebrating the small victories keeps me going.  In 2 weeks I'll have been at this for 3 months, and will take a second round of pictures to compare to my first set I took in February.

I also feel like I'm still able to find a balance between enjoying food without restricting myself too much.  I do find myself telling friends, "I can't have that!" in reference to a sweet treat or other unhealthy snack that they're sharing.  I think sometimes I sound crazy saying it, but saying it out loud reaffirms to myself the choice I am making.

I'm fairly certain I didn't win the diet bet that I'm doing with my sister-in-law.  That's okay.  Some of the other people in the group have already lost 3-4 pounds, which is great!  $5 well spent on my part! :)

See you next week!

Current weight: 183.8 lbs.

Pre-pregnancy goal: 8.8 lbs. to go!

❤️ Kayleen

Milestones.

-1.2 pounds!

Wooooo!  In the single digits for my first weight loss goal.  ANDDDD, I've officially lost 10 pounds since I've started this new journey.

This last week was rough.  Being back at work is rough.  The last quarter of school always feels so stressful.  It's like all of a sudden we've run out of time and I feel like I still have so much to teach my kids.  Throw in the big, scary mandated state test, IEP meetings, professional development days, trying to prep for La ʻOhana (May Day celebration), and having to plan La ʻOhana this year, and I feel like my head is going to fall off.

One perk that at least when I'm at school, I'm too busy to snack.  So at least there's that.  ;)

I got in a majority of my workouts this past week.  5 out of the 7 days.  I'm still using the 21 Day Fix workouts, because they're still freaking hard.  I'm using less of the modified moves, but still can't do a whole minute of some of the moves without pausing to breathe, fall over, etc.  :D  I think after this next round I may give T25 a try.  But I want to feel like I at least mildly conquered these workouts before I move on from them.  They're still not easy enough to not be effective.

I'm joining my sister-in-law's weight loss challenge this next week, so hopefully I can make some money doing what I'm already doing!  :D

See you next week!

Current weight: 184.8 lbs.

Pre-pregnancy goal: 9.8 lbs. to go!

❤️ Kayleen

Spring break is nearly over. :/

-1 pound!

Sorry for the late post.  Yesterday was the democratic caucus here on Maui and I feel like that took up a majority of our day.  Then today was Easter and I went to 2 different friend's houses to celebrate with entirely too much ham.  :D

I was pretty relieved to see a negative on the scale this week.  My food choices weren't super great, and I skipped a few workouts as well.

yummmmmm!

I signed up to take a class over break, which was 2 days long.  Lunch was provided for us both days, which is nice since I'm paying $150 to attend.  Unfortunately, the provided lunch was a Hawaiian bento box.  Now let me preface this by saying that a bento box is fucking delicious.  They come in these super cute lunch tray style plates and come with a variety of different kinds of chicken, beef, fish, rice, and mac salad.  Notice how there was no mention of green salad, fruit, or vegetables?  Yeah, delicious, but entirely not conducive to dieting and portion control.  :p

I'm not sure if someone complained, but the second day's bento box came with green salad (drenched in dressing) and a side of pineapple.  Needed to balance out the teri beef and fried fish.  ;)  Anyways, I made the choice and ate the deliciously awful bento boxes.  And then didn't work out either day after my classes.  (Something about learning for 8 hours makes me super tired...hahahah.)

My newest Fitbit milestone!

It's okay though, new week, new opportunities, new goals.  Especially after the 2 different Easter dinners I've had today.  Oye!

Tomorrow is the last day of my spring break, which I'm finding to be entirely too depressing.  I'm really enjoying being a stay-at-home Mom.  And it's SO nice to be able to work out in the middle of the day while Adalei is napping.

I just have to keep looking forward.  Only 9 more weeks until summer vacation!  I'm SUPER excited to go home and visit family.  I'm hoping to at least be at my pre-pregnancy weight by then!

Current weight: 186 lbs.

Pre-pregnancy goal: 11 lbs. to go!

❤️ Kayleen

Slow & Steady

-1.4 pounds!

I'll take it.  I'm really appreciating the consistency right now.  There's nothing worse than working hard all week and than not getting a reward on the scale.  I know, I know, the scale doesn't dictate my life.  (Except that it does.)

My Fitness Pal has really helped me keep my serving sizes and portions under control.  I've mostly been subscribing to the "everything in moderation" food plan, as long as I track it, portion it, and work out.  

My workouts went much better this week.  It probably helps that I'm on spring break and don't have to go to work.  :p  Didn't get to any of the doubles this week, but I'm going to shoot for them again next week, since my spring break is extra long this year.  yipeeeee.

I've decided to change my first benchmark goal.  Instead of using my standard 10% goal, I'm going to change it to my pre-pregnancy weight.  The numbers are basically the same, but getting my baby weight off is what restarted this journey for me.  After I get there, I definitely have more work to do.

Lastly, it's been approximately one month since I started, so I figured it's a good time to check in with measurements.  And yes, I've been working on my 21 Day Fix workout for a month too...lol.

I've never tracked measurements during any of my weight lots journeys, so I'm not sure what I should be expecting.  But any negative difference is positive to me!  :)

	2/22/16	3/19/16	Difference
Neck	12.5 in.	12.5 in.	0 in.
Bicep	13.5 in.	13.25 in.	-0.25 in.
Bust	39 in.	37.5 in.	-1.50 in.
Natural Waist	36 in.	34.5 in.	-1.50 in.
Hips	44.5 in.	44 in.	-0.50 in.
Thigh	23.5 in.	22 in.	-1.50 in.
Calf	15.5 in.	15 in.	-0.50 in.

Current weight: 187 lbs.

Pre-pregnancy goal: 12 lbs. to go!

❤️ Kayleen

Spring break is almost here!

-1.6 pounds!

*whew*  My workouts were pretty sparse this week.  I only worked out 4 of the last 7 nights.  The level of tired I have felt the past week I didn't think was possible.

Tracy and I did walk on the same day I did one of my 21 Day workouts.  It was actually easier to do my workout video AFTER walking almost 2 miles.  Who knew exercise leads to more exercise?  ;)

My ah-ha moment for the week is that no one should ever eat Costco muffins.  I had a professional development day at school yesterday and of course we had snacks.  The Costco muffins on the back table were cut into fourths.  I grabbed a piece thinking, "80, maybe 100 calories?  I'll put it in my calorie app later."  Later that day when I looked up the nutritional content for a Poppyseed Muffin, I nearly fell off the bench.  I checked multiple websites, because a muffin can't possibly have 700 calories and 40 grams of fat in it.  But it's true!  Ick.  It made that 3 bites of muffin totally NOT worth it.

I've eaten out a couple of times in the past week, and that has always been a struggle for me.  I fret over making the right food choice, especially because choosing the salad isn't always the best choice.  Based on my results this week, I think I can say I did pretty good!  (I probably could've skipped the pistachio gelato, but you still gotta enjoy yourself, right?!)  Marlo swore it was the one made with the least sugar...haha.  :)

I only have 2 days of work next week and then I'm on spring break for a week and a half!  woooooo!  I'm going to use this time to focus on a couple of things:  I'm going to work on doing double workouts at least a couple of my spring break days.  (The 21 day fix program suggests you do it in your third week, if you can.)  For me, time is the real issue of doing double workouts.  But during break, I have no excuse!

I'm also going to work on getting my milk supply back up a bit.  It's definitely taken a dip since I started working out and restricting my calories.  Part of this is because I haven't been getting up in the middle of the night to pump, but even when I do set an alarm, I sleep through the damn thing!  We've also been slowly introducing solids to Adalei, so while she doesn't need quite as much milk from me, I'm not ready to stop nursing her either.  So I just need to give it a little more attention this next week.

See you next week my friends!

Current weight: 188.4 lbs.

Weight to 10% goal: 12.9 lbs.

❤️ Kayleen

progress.

-1.4 pounds!  Wooooo!

It may have even been more, but I had 2 blue moons at Ale House last night ;)  Totally worth it though.  

Thanks FitBit!  :)

My 21 Day Fit workouts are probably going to morph into 30 Day workouts by the time I make it through the first round, but I'm okay with that.  Adalei had a bad day on Sunday, and by the time she got to bed, I was ready for bed.  Tuesday my lower back was really sore, so I took the day off.  I figured taking an extra break was better than injuring my back more.

Dinners have been a bit of a struggle for me lately.  Justin's work schedule changed again and he's working all nights right now.  If I don't have him to cook dinner for, then I don't really make dinner.  A bowl of cereal or something frozen I can throw into the oven is what I end up eating.  While these things aren't the highest in calories, they're not super great nutritionally either.  I need to get back into making crockpot recipes, that way I eat something more well-rounded, and then Justin has something to eat besides fish sticks when he gets off of work.  :)

Adalei and Justin are both napping right now, so its a perfect time to get my Lower Fix workout in.  See you next week!

Current weight: 190 lbs.

Weight to 10% goal: 14.5 lbs.

❤️ Kayleen