February is nearly here

This winter started a month early, heavy snows that built up with each week or two of freezing temperatures and icy packed down roads, trees laden and bowing. It was gorgeous but a little sooner than we expected it so I hoped, but couldn't bank on, the spring coming just as early. We had one single melt-off of any significance before now, but we actually have DIRT under the trees and on the roads now. It's a bit of a shock after so many unrelieved weeks of white or blue or gray. Silence has given way to the noises of life again, birds and squirrels and dogs so far. The smell of ice and snow is replaced by the scent of soft earth and sunshine again. I love winter and I love spring so I feel the loss of one and the joy of the other being on it's way, though I can't help but think that we are going to have at least one more heavy snow or hard freeze.
My dad is coming to stay for a couple of weeks, we're supposed to go get him in a week and I am really looking forward to it, snow or not. I think he'll enjoy being here and will like the area.
I blogged about my goals for the month of January and while I did try, I failed at least one of them. I managed only time 1-2 days a week to work out. That's not to say I had no time, but getting ready, setting aside time and privacy and then cooling off and shower after took so much more than the 10 minute workouts I hoped for so I ended up avoiding them. I think the goal of working out every day was too much for me and I sabotaged myself. However, I have been pretty good about curtailing my calories from drinks and eating healthier, fresher food with more veggies and no fast food. None!! As a reward I have lost two pounds. I was hoping for 4-8, but this is pretty good for doing so little. I was hoping to do a cleanse and detox, but I have always been pregnant, nursing, or sick and couldn't. Til now. So I refreshed my memory by reading through the Master Cleanse and told my friends and husband I was doing it. Then a friend mentioned that lemons can be hard on teeth.. and I have had thousands of dollars worth of work done in the last two years. Allrighty, that's out.
So I ordered samples of a colon cleanse pill and an acai berry mix to try out. "Sample" my aunty. They charged me for the samples I ordered (under $5 total) and then, being from the same company, made two extra charges. The total was more like $200 after that. Our entire grocery budget. Thankfully family helped us out with food til we got our refund and I called every number I could find on the paperwork and website to make CERTAIN I was canceled or removed from every membership or re-orders. One customer service rep actually argued with me that I could get a refund of even use paypal to buy it at all. LOL.
Now I have the pills and my refund. Win win. I don't feel bad though I normally would because they tried to rip me off. Me losing money would be something I would simply accept and learn from, but taking the food off my kids's plates makes me seethe. That company can kiss my grits, I'm keeping the samples. Since I have them and can't do the Master Cleanse, I might as well try the Acai berry instead, so I'll be blogging weekly or more often if I feel like it while I take the pills. I am actually looking forward to it and while I'm hopeful that it will also help me lose weight, I am mostly looking for a less toxic body. At the best I'll lose more weight and be healthier, at the worst I'll have no change at all and I'll still lose a couple more pounds from simply living the changes I've made. Either way, I'm recording it all, hope you follow along!

New year, new determination.

I'm not much of a 'resolutions' kind of gal so I'm not going to talk a big about resolving to do impossible things like turn my life upside down, read War and Peace, and never eat chocolate again.
*shudder*
Can you even imagine no chocolate? The horror!
Back to what I was saying.... I do want some big changes in my life, but I'm fairly sure that I would fail at an astonishingly rapid rate if I made massive changes, so I'm not. Last summer I stopped drinking coffee and soda for three months straight and though I drink it now, it's no more than once every week or two. I also worked on portion size, weeding fast food out of my diet, and getting more activity.

For a long time it worked. I lost 20 pounds and felt great, but then around the beginning of November, when I was making up a Thanksgiving menu I decided to stop being so concerned. After all, holidays are notorious for packing on the weight and as long as I didn't gain I would be happy. Oops. I've bounced up and down 4 pounds for 2 months and I am tired of it! I want to lose again, however slowly it may be so I have to go back to basics. January has just begun and I plan to take advantage of a new start in a new month of the new year. Too many new? Yeah, I agree.
Keeping it simple gets the best results for me so that's what I'm doing. I plan to do something active every single day for the month, hopefully kicking my butt back in line and giving me the results I need to motivate me long term. When I mentioned this plan to my friends on Granola Chicks, one of them (a fellow member of Spark People, I joined in 2007) mentioned that there is a group on Spark People that are doing the EXACT. SAME. THING. Only they offer a trophy on my SparkPeople page and a chance to win a $300 gift car to Amazon.com. How cool is that? Of course I joined and I did my first workout. Ouch. I feel great, but a little tired and I had to modify 2 moves, a 3rd was hopeless, not even close to something I can do.
I kept my butt moving the whole time and did what I could.
Here's a short list of my daily goals:
multi vitamin
water
workout/cardio activity


See? Simple. Since I'm not sure I could keep it up for too long, I plan on doing it for 4 weeks and then if I think I have the moxi, I'll commit to another.