Day Three

Yay!  I've made it to day three... haha!  I will tell you that it has been such an encouragment to get people's comments on my challenge of not drinking soda for 28 days... even as much as getting a friend to do it also (yay, Nic!).  I think that is my favorite thing of doing this -- reading your comments and suggestions!  And I definitely think I will take Becca's suggestion and ordering a glass of water with my sweet tea when I'm out to eat.  I think this will definitely help me to not order so much tea and keep that at a minimum.  :)

I am pretty darn proud of myself... while I haven't lost any weight since I've started this (a whole whoppin' three days ago...lol), I have found myself drinking more water.  If you know me, this is quite an accomplishment!

I will say that today was not without it's temptations.  While running errands, my daughter adamantly told me that she wanted a drink - 50 billion times... in a row.  Normally, when this happens, I try to distract her and it usually works... today it was an umbrella of her very own.  I had promised her at the beginning of our errand running, that if she was good, that I would buy her an umbrella.  She is absolutely obsessed with carrying her own and let me tell you... it's not a pretty picture -- her carrying the umbrella, thus making me squat to keep myself and Carter underneath it, while it is massively pouring outside.  Usually at this time, my shirt will come up in the back, my pants will slide down to show a wonderful image of the perfect plumber's crack, and I will have to use one hand to pull my shirt down to cover it up - while still trying to keep my daughter out of traffic and balancing my 100lb son and his car seat (okay - so I know he's not even near 100lbs, but he sure is heavy!), and keep myself from looking like a drowned rat.  Anyways, back to the drink story.  She would not be disuaded from the lack of drink that I was not providing!  So, as I went into the ghetto - and yes, I definitely mean ghetto, Kmart, I thought that hopefully there would be something that I would willingly venture to buy from this Kmart.  Fortunately, there was a Little Caesars inside of this store - but low and behold - there was nothing but soda and slushies.  I mean, c'mon!  Seriously?  Just tempt a girl.  I honestly thought to myself, why not?  Emma's whining, Carter is fussing, and I really REALLY want a soda.  Who would know?!  Lol.  Luckily, I got a hold of myself and told myself that it was not even an option to go buy a fountain soda and I turned myself and my kids around and went hunting for some water.  Are you proud of me?  Okay, so I seriously couldn't make it 3 days without being tempted, but hey - that's a long time for me to be deprived of soda!  ;)

So here is our weight as of today:

Jonathan:  168.0 (-1.0)
Gina:  141.4 (+1.0)

Day Two of No Soda :)

So I know that I am only on day two of not drinking soda, but I feel like I'm doing pretty well.  I gave the 12 pack of Pepsi that we had to my brother-in-law and bought some bottled water (the water from our faucet is probably fine, but I grew up on well water and spring water - so I'm a little spoiled).  I also bought some flavored sparkling water that has 0 sugar, calories, sodium, and caffeine.  There were pretty cheap too - $0.64 for a big bottle of it.  My husband would be so proud - not drinking soda AND saving money (soda can get so expensive - especially since we like to buy the cans). 

I am in a conundrum though.  I'm not sure if I should rule out sweet tea.  I don't drink it very often - only when I'm out to eat.  But it does have a lot of sugar in it and has caffeine - two of the things I'm trying to avoid by drinking soda.  My problem is that 1) I wasn't going to change anything except for the fact that I'm no longer drinking soda and 2) I hate drinking water.  This is why I bought bottled water and flavored sparkling water - to sort of replace my liquid intake of soda.  I also drink juice once in awhile - but I can only drink so much of that before I get tired of it - and this is where my weakness for soda comes in.  I no longer want to drink any juice and I don't like water.  So... hopefully I've beaten that battle before it starts by buying spring water and flavored water.  Anyways, back to the sweet tea - should this be okay as long as I regulate how much I drink of it (since I'm only drinking it when I'm out to dinner) or should I rule it out completely?

I have observed, however, with my lack of soda intake, I am drinking more water.  Normally, I drink A LOT in a day - whether it be soda, tea, juice, kool aid, etc.  I've noticed that while last night at dinner, I drank only 1 glass of peach bellini tea (yum!) and then the waiter gave me a to go cup of it.  So that was only 2 teas versus I'm not even sure how many sodas I would normally drink (way too many to be sure).  Usually the waiter or waitress is constantly filling up my cup with soda.  So I definitely thought this was a good sign.  The water I drank during the day was definitely hydrating me.  :)

Now to our weight.  I am sad to say that while I happen to have gained a pound (dang it!) my husband has lost more than a pound.  I will say, however, that my husband is sick and has only eaten soup and drank hot tea and water for the last two days (cheater! ;)  haha!)

Jonathan:  167.8 (-1.2)
Gina:  141.8 (+1.4)

Better luck tomorrow!  :)

The No Soda Challenge - Day One

This past week, I had the pleasure of getting to spend the week with my mom and my little brother Kurt.  It was a great week, filled with new memories, and lots of wonderful food.  Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately :), my mother is addicted to the doctor shows... for example the Doctors tv show and Dr. Oz (formerly on Oprah).  So this resulted in my also watching the shows with her, which then turned into me surfing their websites (I'm an internet surfing addict... lol).  I came upon where Dr. Oz has a page strictly for challenges.  The second one listed was a "No Soda Challenge".  My first instinct was to as quickly as possible scroll past it... I've tried one time to cut soda out of my diet - I lasted two days.  Two days.  That's not even enough to say that I tried.  It was more like we didn't have soda in the house and I didn't have time to run to the store and buy more!  Well, in the end, I did click on the link and read about the challenge.  There are four different steps involving drinking sugar free soda, sugar and caffeine free soda, cutting down on your soda consumption by 50%, and then completely not drinking any soda at all (it sounds like trying to break a cigarette addiction... lol).  Jon and I decided that if we were going to do a challenge, that we needed to do it cold turkey. 

Here is our plan:

We will not drink any soda at all for 28 days. 

We will weigh ourselves each day.

I will blog about our days (including our current weights... ahhh!)

Our goal is to see if cutting soda out of our diet will affect how much weight we lose.  We won't be changing our lifestyles - no extra working out (not that we do any now... lol), no change in the foods we eat (yes! no cutting out the chocolate!), and no other strategies to try and lose weight.  This is completely and fully just cutting soda out.  We can still drink juice, gatorade, sparkling water, and of course, water.  I'm looking forward to seeing how much weight we lose, if any. 

Here are our beginning weights... (I can't believe I'm posting how much I weigh on a public blog... oh the joy)

Jonathan:  169.0
Gina:  140.4

Here's to not drinking soda!

Emma's 1st Big Girl Haircut

So today, I decided that my little girl needed a haircut.  In the past, I have cut her hair - or rather, trimmed it up - trying to get rid of the mullet look.  :)  Her hair was getting a little out of control and I thought it would be a great idea to go and get it cut instead of fighting that battle myself... haha! 

Fortunately, Emma did terrific!  She was a trooper and sat there so well and did what the hairstylist asked.  I was so proud of her. 

I'm so happy we won't have hair morning like this for at least the next week: 

And now have this: 

 Besides the fact that they charged me $2 to blow dry her hair (which took approximately 20 seconds to do), we had a great first experience!  And I think Emma looks so beautiful!

My little girl looks like such a big girl!  Yay, Emma!



Overheard at My House...

Momma:  You're my chunky monkey.
Emma:  You're my chunky monkey!
Momma:  I love you, baby.
Emma:  I love you, baby.
Momma:  You're so pretty!
Emma:  I know.

Not Me (Beach Edition)

I did NOT go to the pool and lay in the sun during the hottest time of the day with my sunglasses on and NOT receive a very unattractive raccoon face in reward on the very first day of vacation.  Not me! 

I did NOT slack on being consistent with my 2-1/2 year old's potty training this past week because I was just plain lazy.  She has NOT regressed back into wearing diapers all the time now.  Not me!

I did NOT get told when grocery shopping with my family to buy food for the week at our beach house that my butt crack was showing.  I was NOT completely mortified and definitely did NOT feel a little angry even though the lady paid my a courtesy by telling me.  (Hey- I had a newborn a month and a half ago - don't I get a little slack?  Lol.)

It was NOT me sitting on the body board on the beach telling my daughter to pull me around on it in the water.  I was NOT doing this because I was too tired to stand there or chase her around and I did NOT think that this would keep her busy for awhile.  Not me!

My husband did NOT dig a big hole in the sand to stick our procoscious daughter in to keep her out of trouble.  I did NOT get jealous that I didn't think of this first.  =P

My daughter's diet this past week did NOT consist of chips and Capri-Suns with the occassional oreo.  I would NOT be the type of mom who let this go just because "we're on vacation!"  Not me!

On the way home from literally traveling all day yesterday, I did NOT realize that we had not changed Emma's diaper in over 12 hours.  My poor daughter did NOT sit in the same diaper all day.  Not me!

What have you "not" done this past week?

First Day of Preschool!

My little girl - who only 2-1/2 short years ago looked like this -

started her first day of school today.  Oh my!

Luckily, she has an advantage with starting out the year with 2 friends already!

Emma, Savannah, and Sydney!

What a big girl!

Bring your smiles everyone.

Hope on down for some preschool fun.

Singing, dancing, playing too; lots of fun for me and you.

Running and jumping in the sun, exercise is so much fun.

Bring your smiles everyone, hop on down for some preschool fun.

Love you baby girl!