The 80%

Did you know that 80% of your weight loss comes from what you eat? Did you also know that your abs are made in the kitchen, not in the gym? And did you know that eating healthy for 1 day isn’t going to make you skinny?

I want to use today’s blog and talk about a few tips and tricks that have worked for me… I posted my 10 days of clean eating picture last night and it sparked a lot of peoples interest of what I eat.

Here goes nothing

1.       Have your child clean up their own food when they are done eating (if they are old enough). This will teach them to help out with chores AND it will help you not eat their left overs. I am HORRIBLE when it comes to eating Caleb’s leftovers.

2.       When you make dinner and dish out your plate, WEIGH EVERYTHING! Yes, buy a food scale!!!

3.       After you dish out your plate, pack the rest of the food up for left overs for the next meal or the next day. If you go ahead and weigh it and packed it up per meal instead of all together, it is very easy to grab and go.

4.       Have a water cup in front of you at all times! Drink a 8 ounce glass over water before you eat your meal. Drink one when you finish going potty each time. Make a game out of it, it helps me a lot.

5.       If you are rushed for time and need to make a quick meal without actually having to cook… buy a rotistrierre chicken! Pull the skin off and then weigh the meat. It is yummy and very easy… I actually just had 6 ounces of meat for lunch

6.       Hang a goal outfit up in the kitchen and try it on every couple days. This has REALLY helped me!

7.       Find some people to help hold you accountable and not tempt you to go out to eat.

8.       Take your food with you when you are meeting friends to eat. I hate missing out on the fellowship so I have been taking my food with me to the restaurant and most places haven’t even said a word to me. One did but then I told them my story and they said congrats and walked off.

9.       Clean your pantry out and get rid of temptations. I usually have a sweet tooth about 8-9pm and since there is nothing sweet in my house (beside my son and I cant eat him) I just drink water and try to focus on something else.

10.   Working out is key! Yes this blog is about eating BUT since I am working out too it helps me want to eat better because I don’t want all that hard work and sweat to go to waste.

At the end of the day, you have to find what works best for you because something that works for me might suck for you! I am a firm believer that if you want it bad enough you will work hard enough to achieve it. Just sit down, make a plan and then work to destroy that plan. Time will pass whether you do it or not… so why not just do it?

I am always here if you have questions, need motivation or accountability. Just shoot me a message!!!

1/3 of the way there!!!!

Today is day 10 of my mission to get into my jeans and I have to say, it is going just like a roller coaster! One day I am perfectly fine and doing wonderful, the next day all I want to do is eat horrible and pig out (oink oink) don’t worry, I haven’t but the feeling of wanting to is still there!!!

I just hung up with my coach from Healthy Roads (my weekly motivational/accountability coach through my job) and I am feeling great! He has a way of pumping me up and reminding me that there is an energy about me that is driving me to reach my goals. He said a few things that I want to share with you guys now…

1.       We all have KAS (I was like, umm, what is KAS?) Knowledge, Answers and Skills to achieve our goals!

2.       To remind myself what is my value

3.       To re-evaluate my priorities and makes sure they are in perfect order to achieve my goals

4.       To say something positive to myself everyday

 

My goal I set with him for the next week is to make sure I work out on the weekends. I am great about working out during the week, then the weekends happen and I slack and get busy… not this weekend! This weekend I will be attending my trainers Saturday morning boot camp class and taking dance lessons with Casey in the afternoon.

How are you going to get active this weekend? I would love to hear from you and have some new fresh/fun ideas to try out!!!

Okay, 10 days down and 26/27 more to go (Jamie hasn’t booked her flight yet so I am not 110% sure what day I will be wearing my jeans to the airport to pick her up… BOOK YOUR FLIGHT JAMIE!!!... but it will either be Tuesday February 25^th or Wednesday February 26^th)

Oh and stay tuned because I am going to try on my jeans again this weekend… it really pumped me up last weekend to see how much more they were fitting me so I am going to continue to put them on each weekend until she lands in Texas! Plus maybe this will stretch them out some, Hahahaha!

Have a HAPPY and HEALTHY Thursday my fit friends!!!

What the heck do you eat?!

A few people have asked me what I have been eating since I started my mission to get into my jeans… well here ya go, this is for this week!

*I eat every 3 hours from the time I wake up*

*I drink at least half my body weight in water*

*I do not use myfitnesspal or have a log/journal for my food*

*I try to only eat fresh foods, nothing processed*

Breakfast – A protein shake made with water (I am not a big breakfast person unless it’s not breakfast time)

Snack – Banana Oatmeal Protein Cookie (recipe is below)

Lunch – Mexican Turkey Burger (recipe below) and grilled bell peppers and onions

Snack – Celery & Peanut Butter

Dinner – 6 ounces of grilled Chicken Breast, Spinach Leafs and Avocado Salad

Very simple and not “fun” but I have to remember, I eat to live… I don’t live to eat! Plus I want to get into those jeans SO badly!!!

Recipes:

Banana Oatmeal Protein Cookies

1 Mashed Banana

¼ cup Oats

½ scoop protein

*Mix together and bake for 6 minutes

Mexican Turkey Burger

Ground Turkey Meat

1 Egg White

Chopped Tomatoes

Chopped Ciliantro

Chopped Onions

½ cup Oats

*form into a burger and grill

Hope you guys enjoy! Have a great day and remember that it is all about progress not perfection!!!

1 Weekend Down... 4 More To Go!

1 weekend down and 4 more weekends to go… I am very proud of myself for staying on track this weekend (besides my little slip ups on Friday). I have to say, it wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be. I think mostly because Casey jumped on board and is now doing this with me on top of supporting me. He has even hung up a goal shirt in our kitchen as his reminder to stay on track!!! Gosh, I love that man!

Saturday was wonderful! The workout with Brittany and Clinton was a great time and I got to meet some wonderful fit friends… we even had 2 girls travel up from San Antonio!!! After the workout, Casey and I fell in love with juicing. We were juicing everything we could and there was no stopping us… until we ran out of things to juice. Haha! I will blog more about juicing and what Casey and I have decided to do in the next couple days.

Saturday night was where I thought it was all going to go south. I took a shower and started getting ready to go hang out with some friends (1^st a birthday party and then to a sports bar) and suddenly got this HUGE sweet tooth!!! I went into the kitchen looking for something, anything, to eat and then I noticed my pants hanging there. I stopped my search and instead tried on my pants. Boy am I glad I did because being able to have those sucker zip up and button was MUCH better than anything sweet I would have eaten. Not only did it curve my sweet tooth, it also helped me stay on track the rest of the night. I was able to say  no to cookies and cake at the birthday party. I ordered a side salad with grilled chicken, no cheese and no dressing, and I drank water and diet cokes at the sports bar. I went home feeling great with NO regrets!!!

 

Sunday we ended up sleeping in, cleaning the house, playing volleyball and then just spending time playing with Caleb. We didn’t go anywhere that we were around food that would tempt us, so Sunday was a very easy day for me!!!

I did finally talk Casey into getting on the water bandwagon and he is now carrying around a bubba keg and making sure he drinks that sucker twice a day!!! Do you know how much water you should be drinking? If not, take your weight, divide it by 2 and then drink that many ounces!!! If you weigh 200 pounds, drink 100 ounces (or more) a day. It’s a lot, but you can do it!!! My secret is that I keep a 30 ounce class on my desk and then give myself 2 hours to finish it. Every time I get  up to go pee, I walk to the kitchen and down an 8 ounce glass of water on top of that. It has me in the bathroom all day long but hey its working!!!

Well, time to take on this week! I have dinner tonight at a fancy seafood restaurant (yuck) and dinner tomorrow night at a Mexican restaurant. I am going in prepared!!! I have looked at the menus for both places and know exactly what I will be ordering. I will stay on track and I will get those jeans to look UH-MAZING on me!!!

I hope you all have a Happy and Healthy weekend!!!

Accountability & Juicing

I have a few confessions to make... Yesterday I surprised my best friend by kidnapping her and taking her for pedicures and dinner to celebrate her birthday. We had a blast and she was so surprised!! 

I was on track yesterday and I wanted it to stay that way... I let her pick dinner (because no matter where she picked I knew I could find something healthy to eat) and she picked a Mexican resturant...  I love Mexican! 

I have to admit, I did eat half the bowl of chips. They are my weakness when at a Mexican resturant! After eating half the bowl of chips, the old Jordan kept saying "let's just get some brisket tacos and all the yummy fixings" and I told Mandy that is what I was going to order. Well when the waiter came to take our order, I ended up getting a mango grilled chicken salad instead (ice berg lettuce, chopped mangos, chopped almonds, grilled chicken and side of vingerette dressing). It was very random and kind of surprised myself!! 

The salad was yummy and I have no regrets this morning!! Oh and I even had a few bites of Mandy's birthday flan... But that's it!!

Woke up this morning not bloated (like I would've been if I had the brisket tacos) and feeling good!! 

I felt so good that after we picked up our bountiful basket this morning, we decided to juice!!! We ended up juicing oranges and apples together for a tastes breakfast drink... It was a fun process and I have to say, I am looking forward to juicing again!! 

Here is to a Happy and Healthy weekend! I will stay on track and not have any more slip ups... I hate having to admit them so I just won't do them anymore!!! 

My 4 successes

Yesterday at work we had Down Home, which is where my company provides a catered lunch for everyone. Well, the menu yesterday came straight from one of my favorite Mexican restaurants… mouthwatering! The easy way to avoid it, is to just not go down to where they serve the food (which is what I usually do). However, I know how much Caleb enjoys when I bring home a special dinner for him so I went down and packed a to go container to take home to him.

The meal included the following:

2 Cheese Enchiladas

1 Brisket Taco with feta cheese (my favorite)

Rice

Beans

Chips

Guacamole

Praline

Okay, now that my mouth is watering… I will tell you what happened next!!!

That praline called my name all afternoon long (yall, I love pralines) but I didn’t eat 1 bite. Then it called my name again when I gave it to Caleb in the car for his afternoon snack. He ate half of it and then handed it to me because he was done… This is where I would say that I devoured that sucker! Well, I didn’t!!! I pulled out a Ziploc baggie I had in the car and stuck it in there and put it away! Success #1!!!

Success #2 came when we got home and I dished him out the food. I couldn’t leave it in the to go box because I needed to microwave it, so I had to pull it all out and put it on a plate and cut it up for him. I didn’t eat one single bite!!!

Success #3 was after he was done with his food (he ate about half of what I gave him and didn’t even touch the brisket taco, come on kid) instead of me sitting down to finish his leftovers, I took out some foil and wrapped it all up for Casey to eat for lunch.

Success #4 happened this morning when I noticed the food and heard it call my name, heck I aint against eating Mexican food for breakfast.. I am a true fatty at heart! But, instead I mixed up my protein shake and wrote out this little letter…. (And yes, Casey calls me his Little Duck!)

You have to understand, even though this might sound silly to some of you… this is a HUGE deal for me! I am on a mission to fit into those dang jeans in a couple weeks. Having them hanging up in my kitchen really helped with #2, 3 and 4 for sure and it made me happy that I decided to hang them up. The weekends are the hardest for me, however I know this weekend will be a little bit easier with all I have going on.

Caleb isn’t going to be home, I am starting back with bountiful baskets, I am co-hosting a workout with Brittany Eats Clean and Clinton from My Weight Loss Transformation (check them both out on Facebook), we will be working on building stuff for the wedding, and then I have volleyball on Sunday. My method for the weekend is going to be to stay as busy as possible and keep moving and drinking my water!!!

I hope you all have a WONDERFUL weekend and I hope to see you at the workout tomorrow morning (details below)!

Saturday January 25^th at 11 am

Champions Park

455 Cowboys Parkway, Irving Texas

11:00 – Arrive

11:10 Warm-Up with some light jogging

11:15 – Stretch

11:20 – Start circuit training workouts

12:00 – Lunch (BYOL – bring your own lunch)

12:15 – Introduction of Clinton, Jordan & Brittany

12:30 – Q&A

Weather will be in the 60’s dress accordingly. Please bring water, lunch, yoga mat or towel, medium weight dumbbell/kettlebell (if you don’t have one its okay, you can use your body weight) and a pen and paper if you wanna take notes!!

Guys and girls are welcome!!

A project in the making

I have had a vision in my head for a while now and I am just now starting to bring it to life. It will be something that will take a few months to prep, "build" and complete... but my hopes are to have it out no later than this summer!!! I can't give you a bunch of details because I don't want to give it away, but I wanted to share a few thoughts to let you feel my passion behind this project.

A part of me use to always feel like I was worthless. I felt like I didn't serve a purpose. I felt like I didn't belong. I guess you can say, I just never felt good enough... not even for myself. That has changed drastically and now I am ready to pay it forward!!! I really feel like we are put on this earth to climb mountains and then turn around and help others finish their climb. And, that is what this project is all about... Hold on to your hats because this is going to be epic!!!

What do I need from you? I am looking for 8-10 mom's with children between the ages of 5-12 that are located in the DFW area. I will need both the mom and the children (at least 1 of them).

I am also looking for a photographer in the DFW area who is willing to donate some of their time and their mad skills to help me on this project... they will be the only one who is let in on all the details! Think of this as a way you can pay it forward and leave this earth a better place.

The rest of you, y'all can help me out by spreading the word to mom's or photographers. Also by praying for this project... it is something I really believe in and I really want this to take off.

If you are interested, please please please email me at Fitbyjordan@Hotmail.com and we will go from there.

Mission Possible

As many of you know, from following me on Facebook, I am on a mission to fit into a pair of jeans. I bought these jeans a few years back when I lost all my weight the 1^st time but I never actually wore them before gaining the weight back (heck they still have all the tags on them). Well now I am back down to my previous size again and so I pulled those suckers out. There is only 1 problem, they do NOT fit. All my other jeans are 8’s and 10’s (I still wear some 12’s just depends on if I am bloated from my monthly visit from Aunt Flow or if I have eaten to many carbs) so I am not sure why these won’t fit!!! They are a size 9-11 low rise from the juniors department, maybe that is why? Who knows… all I know is I will wear these and they will fit when I pick up one of my best friends from the airport in a couple weeks (Jamie from RX 2 Fitness www.facebook.com/rx2fitness)!!!

Here is how I plan on getting my booty into those jeans…

1.       I started 2 days ago, today is day 3, and for the next 37 days I will NOT cheat myself in any aspect of my life (except for the night of February 8^th, that is my bachelorette party)

2.       I will be eating 100% clean and not going out to eat

3.       I will make sure I drink at least ½ my body weight in ounces of water a day BEFORE I have my diet coke

4.       I will limit myself to 1 diet coke a day (either a can coke from work or a large from Sonic)

5.       I will only take 1 rest day from the gym a week, Sundays. (Which won’t be a rest day really since I play volleyball)

6.       When I go to the gym, I will give 100% no matter how I feel… a mixture of weights and cardio

7.       I will keep my jeans hung up in my kitchen until they fit, then I will wear those suckers around EVERY where

8.       I have asked my close friends and family members to help support me and not to tempt me

9.       I have also signed up for a program called Healthy Roads where I have a coach call me once a week for 30 minutes to just check in on how I am doing!

·         I just had my 1^st meeting with him and let me just tell you, I feel PUMPED up right now! I had to tell him my story and to hear his reaction and to remind me that I am an inspiration, it was a great feeling. I look at my story and think, well anyone can do this, I am just a normal person… and I forget the struggles I faced getting to where I am today. Having him  ask  me my struggles and making me say them out loud was a very eye opening experience. If you are needing a pick me up in your weight loss journey, stop and write down all the obstacles you had to face to be where you are now… trust me it will help pull you out of the rut and put you back on track!!! This girl is on FIRE!!!

I know that life will happen and I know I will be tempted the next 37 days, however I am going to prove to you and to myself that I am able to overcome those obstacles!  I am going to try and keep up with my blogging every couple days to let you know how I am doing and to help keep myself accountable… Here goes nothing!!!

Yoga

Today was my 1^st time in a very long time to attend a yoga class and… Wait, before I tell you how it went, let me tell you why it has been so long since my last class.

The top 5 reasons it has been forever since my last yoga class:

5.    I have no patience (like NONE)! Heck I countdown to EVERYTHING… ask my family they will tell ya!

4.       It makes me want to take a nap

3.       I suck at stretching so I am not all that flexible, which makes 98% of the poses difficult

2.       Smelly feet – umm yeah gross!!

And the #1 reason I haven’t been to yoga in forever… drum roll please….

1.       The last time I went, the guy in front of me farted REALLY loud and I couldn’t stop laughing and had to leave the class. Seriously, the dude was so relaxed (or probably didn’t even care) and just busted one right there… not a silent but deadly (oh gosh could you imagine?), no a LOUD and LONG fart!!! Yes, I am a 8 year old boy who finds farting hilarious! It started off as a quiet laugh, then it got to the point I couldn’t stop laughing and then I snorted!!! Yep, I am a snorter! The teacher looked at me, you know that look you give you kid out in public when you wish you could just say “SHUT UP”, yeah that was the look… and so I picked up my stuff and left the class… still laughing!

And I am still laughing now!!! BHAHAHAHA

Okay so todays yoga class went much better. The teacher was VERY nice and broke down each pose for me and showed me modified poses for my knee. I thought 45 minutes would drag, but it went by rather quickly. The only part I didn’t like was at the very end when we laid there for about 5 minutes (but it felt like 5 hours) and just relaxed. It was like when you know your alarm is about to go off and you can’t seem to relax enough to fall asleep. I wanted to relax but knew the minute I did, it would be time to get up. I need to work on that.

I am actually looking forward to going back next week!

I hope you all are having a happy & healthy week so far… remember to try new things and to also go back and re-try some old things you might have hated back then but you might end up liking now!

Blog upgrade

I have to give a HUGE shout out to my friend Tiffany for upgrading my blog for me... I am in LOVE with it!!! If you have a blog or are thinking of starting one, go to www.tiffanykuehldesigns.com and send her a message... she is amazing!!!

Also, she has a great Facebook page that is fitness related! Make sure you go and check her page out if you are in need of some inspiration. https://www.facebook.com/takingTiffanyback

Thanks again girl, you are the best!!!

Fitness is NOT all about working out & eating clean...

Wait... WHAT DID SHE TITLE THIS BLOG?! Seriously, she cant be serious....

Welp, I am dead serious!!! Fitness has more then 2 parts, it is more than just working out and eating a balance diet... it is also VERY mental. I have learned this the H-A-R-D way!!!

A friend of mine is down sick (hope you get better soon Suzy Q) and is very worried about gaining weight. She can't work out and she has no urge to get up and cook so she is eating whatever is easiest. We have all been there before, being a mom, being a wife AND being sick is hard (no its not an excuse but it is still hard and sometimes you just want the easy way out, its life). She turned to me for advice on what to do... she was at a breaking point!!! Here is the advice I gave here...

"The sickness wont last forever... right? So have Tommy (her hubby) pick you up a poster board, get some magazines and create a motivation poster for this year. If you cant workout your body, then workout your mind. Fitness is more than physical, it is also a mental game. Remember when 1 part cant work (you cant workout right now) focus on the other part."

Guess who will be making a motivation poster soon... SUZY Q!!! I am going to talk her into letting me share it with you!!

Remember earlier I said that I learned this lesson the hard way? I still look in the mirror and see the old me (290 pounds) starring back sometimes. It is a very hard thing to overcome and it wont happen overnight, just like my weight didn't fall off overnight. When I lost my weight running a couple years ago, I never really paid attention to the mental side of weight loss... then I fell into depression and it took me out of the game for awhile. I am now starting to understand the mental side and I am making a huge comeback!!

Make sure you dig deep and realize that fitness is more than working out and eating... You will go far in your journey if you keep this in mind!!

Welp, (yeah I love saying welp... kinda reminds me of my Papa for some reason) that is all I have for you tonight! I hope you are all having a WONDERFUL 2014 so far...

XOXO
Fit by Jordan