Signs My Diet/Exercise is Working:

1. My clothes are fitting better.
2. My love handles are smaller.
3. Increased self-esteem.
4. More energy.
5. I don't crave fast food.
6. Carrots now taste "sweet" whereas before, nothing was sweet unless it was a dessert.
7. I get full faster.
8. I eat less and I'm okay with that.
9. Starting to see more tone in my legs (I think).
10. I no longer constantly think about my next meal.
11. My skin is less dry.
12. I only drink one soda a day, most days. (Diet of course.)
13. Water tastes good.
14. I look forward to exercising more (although not all the time-I'm not that big of a freak yet).
15. I can walk faster and for longer.
16. Bailey is getting in better shape because I walk her a lot.
17. I have to go to the bathroom 500 times a day because of all the water I drink.
18. I eat when I'm hungry instead of when I'm bored.
19. I snack on fruit, vegetables or cheese when I'm hungry instead of sweets or chips.
20. I can't remember the last time I ate fast food.
21. I can turn down pizza (I'm a superhero).
22. Need less sleep. Haha! I wish!

Jump Rope for Butt

When I was a little kid I remember raising money for the American Heart Association with the Jump Rope for Heart campaign. Okay, well maybe it was only the one time, but I remember it because my friend Jodi and I got our picture in the paper.

Anyway, I started jumping rope the other day because it's been too hot to take walks until about 9:30 at night. Jumping rope is supposed to be awesome cardio. Can I just say that it's awesome for your butt too? Man, my butt was so sore after the first day; hell, I only jump for about a total of 4-5 minutes (Hey, don't laugh until you try it-it's not quite as easy as when you were a kid), but wow, it really works your butt. I had no idea! It's my new favorite exercise. Buns of steel, here I come!
P.S. I didn't really eat only a handful of carrots and a spinach leaf yesterday, just in case you were worried about me extreme dieting. Ha! I love food too much to eat that little.

Rollover Carbs

You know how some cell phone companies have plans that allow for "rollover minutes"? You get to use any minutes that you didn't use that month and can use them the next month. Too bad diets don't work that way. I only ate a handful of carrots and a spinach leaf. Cool! Tomorrow I can have four donut cheeseburgers and a chocolate milkshake!

Notice a Trend Here?

As I was watching Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman while I ran on the treadmill (yes I own the entire series; yes I'm odd) I realized something. Let me illustrate:

The man on the left is Peter Reckell who plays Bo Brady on Days of Our Lives. The man on the right is Michael Weiss who played Mike Horton on Days of Our Lives. I haven't watched Days in probably almost two decades, but when I did watch, these two were my favorite "soap hunks."

On the left is Hugh Jackman as Wolverine of course. And Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow is on the right. Both very yummy.

Eric Bana as Hector in the movie Troy. Holy smokes.

Oh Lord of the Rings, how I love thee. And how I love Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn, the true King of Gondor.

Josh Holloway (bad boy "Sawyer" on Lost) and Sean Bean (one of my favorite actors)

Joe Lando, better known in my world as Byron "Sully", otherwise known as probably the most perfect man on the whole damn planet.

Just in case you didn't see enough of him.

Yeah, He's my fave.

Hehe

A Few of My Favorite Things (Take 2)

I thought I'd take some more pictures of some of my favorite things when I was a kid. I'm glad my parents have a basement with enough storage area and are gracious enough to let me keep a lot of my toys I had as a kid. There are boxes and boxes of toys that my brother and I had. Someday I'll look through them all.

Little House on the Prairie book series
I have no idea how many times I've read these books, but it's a lot. They are still kept on my bookshelves today.

My rocking chair
Josh had one too in a different style. We got a lot of use out of them.

Patches
Oh my favorite stuffed animal of all time. He still hangs out in my room. Don't tell anyone, but he sometimes still sleeps with me. Shh...

Some progress

Awhile back I blogged about wanting to change some things. Well, I haven't done much of what is on my list, but I have started to really make some progress on the diet and exercise. I think I'm doing better on the dieting, but the exercise will come in time, I hope. I've been taking Bailey on walks almost every day and also walking on the treadmill some too. I just really want to start amping up the cardio though and haven't yet been able to. Baby steps I suppose. There's a website that I've been using to track my diet and exercise called Sparkpeople.com that is a pretty big pain in the butt actually, but it seems to be helping me eat healthier. I think I've lost about 3 pounds since starting on June 26th. I say "think" because I didn't bother to weigh myself when I started and just guessed my starting weight. Then about four days ago I finally weighed myself using my Wii and discovered I weighed more than I thought I did. Oh joy. I'm down 3 pounds since then, but I weighed myself earlier in the day than last time so who knows? I also read an interesting article about hypothyroidism and how losing weight becomes much harder when your thyroid doesn't work right. Great. Just great. As if losing weight hasn't been a hard enough battle, now I actually have a medical reason for it, not just me being a lazy ass.

I have also been a bit more social. In June I went to Heather's fundraiser and a few days ago I went to see Eclipse with Jodi and Heather. Ah, Twilight, my guilty pleasure. I still need to do more things, but not having very many friends and having a boyfriend who'd rather chew glass than do something with other people kind of puts a damper on that goal. I'll continue to work on it.

Andrew and I are still talking about taking horseback riding lessons. Talking is all we're doing about it. Maybe someday...

So, a little bit of progress. Not so sedentary, which is good. I hope I can continue to get more active.

Team Edward

Tomorrow at this time I will likely still be mesmerized. Yes, I'm going to see Eclipse tomorrow with Jodi and Heather. Yay! I'm so excited! I'm such a sucker for a love story...and for the dark brooding type. Sigh.

4th of July Park City-style

Park City residents go pretty much all-out for the 4th of July. Last year our street actually closed down entirely to allow for all the fireworks. While the street didn't close this year, the fireworks weren't lessened any. It's 11:40 and the fireworks have finally slowed down. They've been going pretty much non-stop since about 8:00. Watching fireworks always makes me feel like a kid. We used to go to Cessna Stadium every year for the 4th of July Celebration. I can almost feel the itchy fiberglass seats as I type this!


Both dogs will be happy the fireworks are over until next year. They don't like them, although Andrew and I took Bailey on a walk this evening and she didn't seem to mind it too much. Video of the fireworks turned out pretty good, but Blogger won't upload it of course. I'll try again later.