Time to be Thankful

So everyone on facebook is putting what they are thankful for each day. I decided I would just make one solid list on here. And these are in no particular order.

1. I am thankful for my parents. They have always provided a very supportive environment for me and been a fan of everything I did. They are always there for me and encourage me in everything I decide to try. And yes, they do spoil their only child, but I'm not complaining :).

2. I am thankful for Jason. I don't know what I did to deserve him, but I'll take it. He is so hard working and always there for me and pushing me to push myself harder and follow anything I want to do. He is funny and loving and makes every single day better. (well most days, I mean some days he can be annoying :) ).

3. My friends. I have the best friends. I may not have a ton, but the ones I have are quality. When I was in the hospital, they were there for me and helped cheer me up and they are all supportive of the journey I've been taking and only want to see me succeed. They are fun and always making me laugh. Even the ones that are far away, I know are still rooting me on and always a phone call away for support.

4. My dog(s). Sandi makes me happy every single day. She is always happy to see me and makes me get out and go for walks and play with her. She is the best cuddler in the world and the best listener. I don't know how people live without dogs. My parents dogs also make me extremely happy and I am currently plotting on how steal them away. I also have great dogs where I work, and they are way happier to see me than my co-workers ever are. :)

5. My Job. Today everyone should be thankful that they just have one. But I actually have one that I enjoy. I have great co-workers. We laugh and play pranks and I don't mind going to work. Everyone at work was extremely supportive when I had my heart attack. They always encourage me. I was also extremely lucky to have a job that was so understand and worked with my cardiac rehab schedule and only wanted me to get better.

6. The rest of my family. From grandparents to aunts and uncles (there aren't a ton) I am very thankful for all of their love and support. My Aunt Marilyn in particular has been extremely encouraging on my healthier journey and always makes me want to succeed. She encouraged me with seeing a trainer again and helped get me started when I was lagging.

7. Jason's family. They are always there for us too, and help us out all the time. They help watch Sandi and in so many other ways. It's nice to know that if my parents couldn't be there for me, I could call his and they would be there in a heartbeat.

8. My trainer. She is so supportive and pushes me harder than I would ever push myself. I am always pleasantly suprised when I accomplish the things she asks me to do, because I would never venture that far on my own, but she knows I can do it.

9. A great place to workout. I love Blue Springs Fitness. My whole life I was too terrified to join a gym. I always thought everyone would be thin and fit and judge me for not being that way. I have not once felt judged. Everyone is friendly and says hello. The owner is great and when he read my blog, sent me the nicest and most encouraging e-mail. It's things like that that keep me going and make me believe that I can be successful.

10. My lifestyle change. I don't think I am ready to say that I am grateful for having a heart attack. But I am grateful for being healthy now and feeling so much better. The way I felt a year ago and the way I feel now is night and day difference. Exercising and eating healthy has made such a positive change in my life, and I guess it had to take something so negative to kick me into gear. (But let's not do that again, k?)

There are so many things that I am thankful for. I have a very blessed life and have been so fortunate.

No Repeats

Rosie O'Donnell was on the Dr. Oz Show recently talking about her heart attack and they said something that really kicked my butt into gear this week. They said that women who have had a heart attack are incredibly likely to have a second one within five years.

I do NOT want that to be!

I have to fight, fight, fight, every day to be healthy and make healthy decisions and work out and I do not want to be back in that hospital bed. No excuses.

Halloween has been hard. We have had candy at work and I bought candy for the house and we only had three trick or treaters. I was so bummed! So now I have tons of leftovers. I am sending it to work with Jason and putting it at my housewarming party, hopefully it will get eaten up!

I worked out with my trainer on Monday. She always makes me want to do better too. And she texts me during the week to check up on me which makes me keep going because I don't want to tell her that I didn't work out. So today I went and did another workout that she wrote for me.

I have a new guilty pleasure, the Vampire Diaries. I take my iPad to the gym and watch it while I'm jogging on the treadmill. It helps the time go by, you just have to be careful to keep your speed up and not get too involved in the show. lol.

I found a few yummy new recipes. I made this delicious funfetti cake dip. I found the recipe on pinterest. It was so good! Even Jason ate tons of it, and he normally doesn't like the "healthy" recipes I make. But funfetti cake has always been my favorite. Here is the recipe. (I'm going to make it again for my housewarming party)

I got this from a great blog, Eat Yourself Skinny. http://www.eat-yourself-skinny.com/2012/06/funfetti-dip.html

Servings: 24

Serving Size: 1/4 cup

Calories: 105

Fat: 2 g

Carbs: 20.2 g

Fiber: 0.3 g

Protein: 1.4 g

Here are your ingredients:

1 (18.9 oz) box Funfetti cake mix

2 cups fat-free plain yogurt

1 cup lite Cool Whip

Fat-free animal crackers

In a large bowl, mix together cake mix, plain yogurt and Cool Whip until completely combined and you see no more lumps.  Cover with plastic wrap and allow to chill for about 4 hours.  Garnish with additional sprinkles if desired and serve with animal crackers, enjoy!  

Very Very Good! Everyone have a great weekend!

Baseball Leg

Life seems to be so crazy these past few weeks! Jason & I moved, which has been such a task. We are finally settled in our new house and Sandi is thrilled to finally have her own yard. Everything is put away and clean, now if only it would stay that way!

With moving, (excuses excuses), I didn't make it to the gym much. Then on Sunday, we went and cleaned out our old place. We scrubbed and cleaned for almost 8 hours! Everyone who knows me knows that I am a HUGE klutz. My trainer always works on balance with me and it is much needed. Well, I really don't know what I did on Sunday but I must have bumped my knee at some point. I knew it hurt, and when i got up on the counter to put in some lightbulbs it REALLY hurt, but I still didn't pay any attention. Well Sunday night I was back at home, grabbing some clothes out of the truck when I looked down and saw that my leg was HUGE! I dropped everything and ran inside yelling at jason because I was freaking out. lol

Here is what it looked like when I first noticed it:

HUGE! So I texted a friend of mine who is a nurse and she told me to watch it closely. (Thanks Shalan!)

So anyways, I iced it all night and it was better the next morning. It is still a good size bump and a really gnarly looking bruise, but it is waaaay better. (I did call the cardiologist and check in to make sure it wasn't a blood clot and none of them were worried). My medications make me swell and bruise much easier!

But because of my leg, I couldn't work out the first few days of the week. But I went back this morning and we worked hard. I love working out with my trainer. She is just so encouraging and supportive, she is easy to talk to and be honest with and she always makes me want to do better.

So now, I have to force myself to get up before work tomorrow and go. I know I need to get in the habit of going to the gym in the mornings because with the holidays coming, I know I will come up with excuse after excuse because of working long hours, etc... But I just have to make it part of my routine and do it! Like my trainer was saying this morning, this isn't just to lose weight, this is for my life. I have to tell myself that every.single.day.

Lots of other things going on that seem to be stressful, but just gotta keep going. The Kansas City Star article was good. I thought they picked a picture where I was squinting and it only made me want to lose weight even more, lol...but it was good.

I'll end with a funny! (I'm sure my trainer would not approve of this method!)

FitBit

I got my fitbit in the mail yesterday, so far I really like it!

I got the Ultra Fitbit in pink (duh!)

So what is it? You wear it all day long (I clip it on my bra strap and don't even feel it) and it counts your steps, stairs you climb, all of your activity, your calorie burn etc.... It logs it all onto www.fitbit.com, where you can also track what you eat, workouts if you don't wear your fitbit etc... What I really like about it, is that I can sync it with myfitnesspal since I am already familiar with that website and use it frequently. It syncs my calories and what I'm eating and works together.

The coolest part for me so far is that it tracks your sleep! It let me know what percentage I slept last night, it said I woke up 21 times! I'm curious to see if that is normal or what my routine ends up being. It told me I was in bed for a little over 8 hours and got 6 hours 52 minutes of actual sleep. I find that so fascinating. They give you a wrist thing to wear it on at night and I didn't even feel it.

The reason I bought it was I had a customer tell me about how she has lost 40 pounds using this, so I thought I would give it a try.

I do have a heart rate monitor that I use when I work out, which is great for your calories and making sure you are working at your target heart rate, but it is more invasive to wear and you have to wear a big watch to go with it.

The fitbit automatically syncs anytime it is near my computer.

So hopefully it helps me out on this journey...I'm excited to see. You have this little flower that grows during the day with your activity, and it motivating.

I haven't been to the gym much this week. We have been packing to move, ugh! Soooo ready to be in the new house and setlled.

Don't forget to pick up the Kansas City Star this Sunday and check out my story in the Star Magazine. :)

Hard Day

This week I am beating myself up a bit. One of my good friends found out that her 9 year old daughter has high cholesterol. She is a super healthy, thin, active little girl. So they are making changes in their food, etc... Here I am giving all this great advice, and recommending things. How much of those am I still following? Probably less than half.

It is just so hard for me! I've gained back some of the weight that I lost. I just have NO SELF CONTROL. The other day I went to Chipotle and the whole time I'm telling myself, no chips and guac, no chips and guac. I get up to the checkout and what comes out of my mouth "chips and guac please."

I set my alarm for 6:15 every morning to get up and go to the gym. How often do I get up and go? Only when I have to meet my trainer. Granted, I still go in the evenings. But every week it seems like I have an excuse to miss days.

I really wish I could work out with my trainer 3 days a week, but I just can't afford to do more than 1 day. I can barely afford that, but know that it is necessory for my health so I just make it a priority.

I just need to get my  motivation back. If Jason would wake me every day and say hey babe let's go the gym together. I would totally jump up and go. But most mornings he is up and gone way before I'm even out of bed. It's not his fault, I just wish I had someone to really push me.

Speaking of Jason. This week he told me he has lost 18 pounds. Doing what? Oh just thinking about it apparently! lol.

Okay I'm done being down on myself. Just gotta keep trying. I ordered a Fitbit this week. I will write how that goes.

Positive thoughts, positive thoughts....

Zumbaaaa

Today is an incredibly boring day at work. I have a cold and all I want to do is go home and sleep!

I tried my first Zumba class last night. I know that I looked like an idiot, but it was a lot of fun. I can not move my hips at all and moving my feet, hips, and arms at the same time is an impossible task. But as long as you keep moving, that's what important. I was always afraid that a class like would be intimidating. But there were people there of ALL sizes and ages. It was really fun. I probably wouldn't have tried it if I hadn't gotten a friend to go with me, so thanks Trisha!

I worked out with my trainer on Monday and I am still sore! Not terribly, just a little in the legs. She has me to do so much balance and core training. We do a lot on the Bosu ball and Yoga ball. So instead of just lifting weight, I am standing on the bosu ball trying to balance myself AND lift weights at the same time. Yikes. But I'm always impressed with myself when I do it.

We did squats on Monday, on the bosu ball, holding weights.

But balance is DEFINITELY something I could use some improvement on.

I went to a really fun wedding on Saturday night, so I was also still lagging a little from having too much fun. It was so beautiful and it was like a college reunion. We danced and danced and stayed up way past my bedtime.

A week or so ago, I went to my first American Heart Association meeting for Go Red for Women. It is a really great organization and I would encourage anyone who is interested in a healthier lifestyle to visit their site for all kinds of great tips. www.goredforwomen.org.

I also talked to my work and this year on Red Friday (February 1st), since it is National Go Red for Women Day, my work is going to donate a percentage of sales to the AHA and we are going to do different promotions. This will also be 1 year to the weekend that I had my heart attack. Wasn't it very good of me to have it on Red Friday? lol.

Don't forget to follow me on Twitter. Heartjourney86

And pick up the Kansas City Star on Sunday, October 14 and look for a story on me in the Star Magazine.

Sunday Funday

This week has been better. I still could have made some better decisions, but I made it to the gym and did the workouts my trainer gave me, and I finally feel like I am maybe starting to see some muscle definition come back.

It is so amazing how quickly you can get off track. I mean I had a freaking heart attack just over six months ago, and to see how quickly I can slip back into my old lifestyle is amazing. So I'm getting back on track. Working out with trainer helps sooooo much because I have someone else motivating me, and I don't want to go back and give her a bad report card!

So this week before I went to the grocery store, I made a list of meals I wanted for the next week or so. I need to get back to cooking more!

Sunday breakfast has always been mine and Jason's thing. It is our favorite meal and we usually go out. We used to go to the Big Biscuit every Sunday, but after my heart attack we have only been there maybe twice because they don't have many healthy options. So now if we go out we usually go to First Watch or somewhere like that. Yummmmm. But this morning I decided to cook at home. I made oatmeal pancakes and egg whites. It wasn't bad. Don't get me wrong, it was no buttermilk pancake. But even Jason cleaned his plate. Normally I don't use syrup, but I did use a little bit of sugar free this morning to help offset the oatmeal, lol.

This afternoon we went to the royals game. It was such a beautiful day for it. And tonight we grilled out. So double yum.

We are moving in a few weeks, so I constantly feel like I should be cleaning or packing or something productive, but I have been so exhausted all week since I got back from my work trip. Right now I'm sitting in my office with crap all around me, lol.

So here's to hopefully an even better week. Maybe I'll be brave enough to weigh myself in the morning. :)