Losing weight is not easy! But I'll take the bumps in the road!

Losing weight is just not easy! I've been down this road so many times in my life and I would love for it to be easy just once! ONCE! That's all I'm asking. Why is that so hard?

BECAUSE IT IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm sure we all remember my "Hematological Mess", aka Take #432, post a couple months a go. Well although I have lost 20 lbs.....said so nonchalantly. 

YEP!

I'm gonna say it again!

20 LBS PEOPLE!

If I could have made that blink and flashy and fireworks going off I would have. Because dam! 20 lbs is a lot! Just losing 20 lbs I feel better and have dropped a pant size. Which that alone should be having me dance!

It's been a roller coaster over the last 2 months but the weight is coming off!

Courtesy of MFP weigh ins. 

I unfortunately am still a Hematological MESS! Now the doctor is only watching my white blood cells and platelets at the moment; they've been elevated and the other numbers will take a couple months to come down.

My white blood cells and my platelets don't have anything to with my weight, at least not that I'm aware of, but they are a mess and I now have to go back to my Hematologist. I'm not at all happy about this. There is no explanation other than my Essential Thrombocythemia acting up again. You said what?  Yes, I have a blood disorder called Essential Thrombocythemia. It's a mouth full I know. In a nutshell I have an unknown reason for high platelets.

Last week I was having a horrible time showing any signs of weight loss so I started doing an Intermittent Fast, IF. This helped kick my body into gear and I was able to get several pounds off and keep it off. Although I was only eating between 10 AM and 5 PM I still managed to eat around 1300 calories each day.

We leave for Disney soon and I plan to follow the same way of eating, IF and Low Carb (LC), the whole time we are there. 

My goal was to lose 10 lbs each month and I unfortunately missed that goal by a week for March. But no worries, I'm sticking to my goal of reaching 210 lbs by the end of this month. That is a lot to take in and achieve while being on vacation but I am up for the challenge.

My trusty spreadsheet and MFP will help me stay on track.

My mini goal will be to reach the "Obese" BMI category. I know, I know, some of you are saying "Why in the world does she want to get to the OBESE BMI category?" It's super simple! I'm in the REALLY OBESE BMI category right now!

If was a rough start this month, you can see the roller coaster here. But if I can stay on track I will reach the Obese BMI category, orange BMI, by Monday, April 16th! I so want to reach this goal! This is just as important to me as it was to lose 20 lbs. Being able to step down in the weight and BMI ranges is huge! ABSOLUTELY HUGE!

Seeing the "Current Weight" and "Current BMI" numbers on this page go down will be fantastic! And I for one can't wait to see that happen. It will take another month to get that "Current Weight" into the dark orange range, but that "Current BMI" within the orange range is within reach. I can taste it!

4th day and it's been great!

Got to sleep in on my last day of vacation. I have to say that I am dreading going back to work however the break has been wonderful. I spent the morning scrapbooking and cooking. I'm trying to get the remainder of my recipes made so that I can complete my menu for the next several weeks.

Today's cooking adventure lead me to making the following:

• Taco Salad Mix
• Taco Bites
• Boiling Chicken for multiple recipes
• Cutting up 9 apples for snacks for the week (thanks to Chuck for help on this one)
• Cutting up romaine lettuce for this week's meals
• Pepperoni Pizza Mini Meatloaf

I tried a bit of each recipe and I have to say...The Taco salad tastes fantastic. Of course I gave it my own little twist....which made the Taco Bites which are made with the Taco Salad wonderful.

I definitely think that Chuck and I are ready for the kids to go back to school; unfortunately we are NOT ready to go back to work. I've been off for a little over 2 weeks and it has been fabulous!

We had the Pepperoni Pizza Mini Meatloaf for dinner and it was delicious! Chuck and I both loved it. As you can imagine my picky eaters are being major PITAs about even trying it.  I wish they would just try something, anything, this is really ridiculous!

I was hoping to get more cooking done but it doesn't look like that is going to happen today.  Several of the recipes are more for when you are going to eat right away.

I've even managed to do a couple of scrapbooking pages today as well:

Bown Family 2013 Christmas Card

Our Christmas Card this year turned out fantastic! I absolutely LOVE it! Sometimes I wonder how I am going to top my card from last year and well I always do.

As always the card has a tree on it. I just have to have a Christmas Tree on my Christmas card each year.

I wanted it to look like the kids were looking from behind the tree and I think I accomplished that very well.

What's going on?

Man I wish things would settle down in life. I feel like everything is just flying by and I'm not getting a chance to enjoy the little things.....my kids, my husband.....my life! We just go back from a great vacation and today was our first day back to work. it was not a good day. Very stressful!

All I wanted to do all day was come home and scrapbook all our vacation highlights. Hopefully I will get to do some of that this week (in between working OT). Here are the challenges I plan on using to scrap our last family vacation:  http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/forums/digital-scrapbooking-f253/master-thread-digiscrap-progressive-challenges-links-t564535.html

Challenges 11, 12, and 13 aren't on the list but can be found here: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/forums/digital-scrapbooking-f253/

If you are a stamper, scrapper, or digi scrapper this is the BEST website!

Splitcoaststampers Progressive Challenge #2

Task 1

Task 2

Task 3

Task 4

Splitcoaststampers Progressive Digi Challenge #1

Task 1


 Task 2

Task 3

 

Task 4

Splitcoaststampers Progressive Digi Challenge #10 twice

Jesse and Zoey's Easter pictures turned out so great that I decided to do the Splitcoaststampers Progressive Digi Challenge #10 twice! I loved how these came out!

Task 1


Task 2
 


Task 3


Task 4