Shoes to Lose

So this last weekend I had the honor of receiving two blogger awards!! Woot Woot! Both of these awards require me to write 7 things about myself that you don't already know. Here goes nothing. 1. I don't eat meat off of the bone. It seems so...barbaric. This drives Matthew crazy as he grew up in a house of fried chicken and chicken wings. 2. I have lived in Utah my whole life. 3. My very favorite food of all time is mashed potatoes and gravy but the mashed potatoes have to be real and the gravy has to be made from scratch. 4. I got married when I was 21 and have yet to regret it. My husband is the best man I know and continues to amaze me. I could not have found someone better than him and I am so blessed to have him. 5. I'm a runner. Yep..that is right. Don't get me wrong, I don't actually run. I've always just known that somewhere deep down inside of me, under all the layers of bad choices, is a runner. I'm excited to uncover her. 6. I'm addicted to TV...

This weekend I had every intention of behaving. I really, really underestimated how much traveling can throw you off! First off, before I left on Thursday I had a bit of a binge. (more on this later) We stopped for dinner at KFC and I had two grilled chicken breasts and some green beans. Later that evening I had some frozen yogurt but the day wasn't a complete bust because my calorie count came in right in around 1300. Friday morning my mom wanted to take us out to breakfast so we went to a cafe in the hotel. I had an egg white omelet with ham, green peppers, and onions with a side of fruit. So far so good. After breakfast we said goodbye and headed down to Las Vegas. We met up with Matt's friends around 2 and they just wanted to go to the food court for a quick lunch. I had a BLT Salad from McDonald's and only used a small amount of the dressing. This is where things take a turn for the worse. For dinner we ate at The Grand Lux cafe. (think Cheesecake factory) I already t...

You know when you're working out and you really just feel like you should quit? You're tired and sweaty and you've already put in a good 35 min but you told yourself you were going to do 45?....yeah, that time. What song comes on your iPod to get you through it? Here are a few of mine: Gotta get Through This by Daniel Bedingfield Imma Be by BEP (if you don't know what BEP is by now....turn on a radio) Just Dance by Lady Gaga What is your pump up jam? What song do you run extra fast to? Also....guess what is on its way to my house!

So earlier in this post I mentioned that I was headed to Vegas for a weekend. Well that weekend happens to be this weekend and I can hardly wait. Matthew and I only live about 5 hours from Vegas so it makes for an excellent quick getaway. Friday is my birthday so I'm taking off work and going to America's Playground. (It is my opinion that the day you decide to work on your birthday is the day you are truly old.) Matthew is from California and all of his good friends are still there so they are driving up to meet us there. It will be fun for Matt since he hasn't seen them since our wedding. There is one thing that I've been trying to decide though....Do I give myself a free pass on my birthday or do I stick with it? You decide. There is a poll just to the right of this post. My birthday fate rests in your hands. :)

So if you don't know who hungry girl is, go find out and then come back. :) I found Hungry Girl's recipe for Hungry Girlfredo and the promise of a 100 calorie bowl off creamy goodness drew me in. But was it too good to be true? Since the recipe had mostly ingredients that I have on hand anyway I decided to go ahead and give it a test. I read around online so I would know what to expect and make sure I did everything correctly. I started with the Hungry Girl endorsed House Foods Shiritaki Noodles. Rinsed them well... Laid them out on a paper towel and dried them off the best I could before tossing them in a bowl and into the microwave for a minute to make sure they were really dry. I added the final ingredients of Fat free sour cream, a laughing cow cheese wedge, grated Parmesan, and a dash of pepper. So far this is looking good. One Minute later and Voila! 100 Calorie pasta. So...the verdict. The sauce was pretty good. I actually really liked it and would consider using the in...

I'm feeling hungry. Not because I haven't eaten in a while. Not because I smell something that is delicious. Not because I was just looking at the "This is Why You are Fat" web page . Nope tonight I'm feeling hungry because I'm spending the evening in the hospital with my grandma and I have to say that I'm a little stressed out about it. She isn't in the ICU anymore but sometimes at night she becomes disoriented and attempts to rip out her feeding tube and oxygen . I'm nervous that I will sleep through it. I keep telling myself that "Hunger is not an emergency" and that I'm not even really hungry. Hopefully this feeling goes away soon. It not....the cafeteria is open until 3AM :)

Hey Everyone! Thank you for all of your sweet compliments and best wishes for my grandma! I'm sure you are all waiting with baited breath to see my newest pair of shoes so I won't make you wait long to see them. Here they are: This time it was a little harder to find a pair of shoes because they had to fill two purposes. They not only had to be fabulous but they also had to get me through a weekend in Las Vegas without killing my feet.(More on that trip later) especially since now that I've chosen shoes as my reward Matthew rolls his eyes every time I need to get a sensible pair and not count them. The best part of these shoes is that they are remarkably comfortable. I don't know that I would go as far as Dr. Scholes and say they "feel crazy good" but it's pretty darn good. This week's weight loss really did come as a shock to me since I was unable to workout all week with the exception of Monday. I stayed on top of what I ate and tried to get in a lot...

That's right people...I have officially lost 60 lbs according to my scale this morning. I'll be picking up a new pair of shoes today to reward myself for my progress. I'll check back a little later to update you on the newest member of my wardrobe. Also check out this post to see a postcard with 1 of my reasons to lose weight.

Grandma is doing much better! She has been moved out of the ICU and into a recovery room. Spending my days at work and my evenings at the hospital was a little rough but it certainly wasn't all bad. It was great to see a lot of my extended family members...even if it wasn't the best circumstances. Another perk, It gave me an excuse to eat here: Chipotle is my FAVORITE place to eat. Now I know what you are all thinking. "Chipotle! Is this woman crazy!? That is SO unhealthy!" But hear me out. I get a barbacoa burrito bowl with rice, black beans, tomato salsa, a tiny bit of cheese and lots of lettuce. Doesn't it look AMAZING!? And according to this site and caloriecount.com it runs at only about 600 calories. I know that is a pretty high calorie meal for a dieter. As a matter of fact it is nearly half of my daily intake. But this is one of those meals that really fills me up and I don't feel too guilty about eating. What are your favorite places to eat out and w...

So this week has really thrown off my workout and eating schedule. Monday evening my mom called and told me that my grandma had fallen and broken her neck and that they were bringing her up to a hospital near me. Tuesday right after work I headed up to the hospital for a visit. My grandma was SUCH a sweetheart. Her face was swollen and bruised and she couldn't move her neck because of the brace it was in. She sill opened her eyes and looked and me and told me that I looked really good and that I must have lost some weight (I'm sure my mom had told her.) That's the way my grandma always was. It was never about her. Such a sweet lady! We stayed at the hospital until about 10:00 that night before we went home. I took my mom home with me since we only live about 30 minutes from the hospital and she lives a good two and a half hours away and is scared to drive on the big city streets. So no working out on Tuesday. Yesterday was nearly the same story. Up early in the morning to...

I promised you a weigh in on Saturday and I failed to deliver. I apologize blog world. After sweating away all week and watching what I ate, my scale rewarded me with a .7 lb loss. Woot , it wasn't a gain. I wasn't expecting a loss this week and if you are female and can recognize simple patterns on my week by week loss chart....I'm pretty sure you can figure out why :) Friday was a hectic evening...and not the one that I had planned. Matthew and I had originally made plans to visit his Grandma for her birthday and go to dinner with Dustin and Mariah . However, my eye was still killing me and I was dead tired from not getting any sleep the night before. Luckily, my boss, bless his heart, could see my pain and let me go home early. I came home and took a nap and woke up with my eye hurting even worse than it was before. I called my optometrist and made another appointment. Unfortunately while I was on the phone with him, Charlie (my monster of a beagle) took my glasses off o...

Happy Friday! Yesterday I woke up with a burning in my right eye. I immediately took my contacts out and wallowed in pain on the bed for a bit longer. My eyes were watering like I'd just been dumped and they were SO sensitive to light. I decided that it wasn't bad enough that I should miss work. (Especially since I'm taking a day off at the end of this month for vacation. Vegas Baby!) I struggled through work and decided that this certainly wasn't going to get any better without the help of a doctor. I called my optometrist and got in at 5. Luckily, my boss was nice enough to let me leave a little early. I was in and out of the doctor in a matter of about 10 min. I have an ulcer on my eye....and that pain I'm feeling, is bacteria eating my cornea. (yikes!, I know) Here is a picture of my eye: Note: this is when it wasn't feeling all that bad. It got much more red and much more swollen but when that happened I really wasn't all that interested in taking a pic...

Lately I've been having several days in a row where I just feel like I'm ALWAYS hungry. I don't ever feel satisfied and I'm sure if I allowed myself, I could eat the world. I never expected to feel like this. I don't really have hunger pangs but I just can't shake the thought that I'm hungry. If anything I expected this feeling in the first few months of my lifestyle change...not now. Not 5 months in. So the question is, How can I tell if I'm really hungry? Is my body trying to tell me something? Am I really not getting enough calories? or, is it all mental? How do you decide whether or not your feelings of hunger are real? Do you allow yourself to give into them or do you practice some will-power and fight them off until your next planned meal or snack?

One thing you will soon learn about me is that I eat out...a lot! It has definitely been a challenge these last few months but I was determined when I started this diet, not to make my husband feel deprived because of it and Matthew loves to go out. Since my new habits are a lifestyle change I decided it would be much more effective if I just used my resources and find ways to eat out and still have a healthy, balanced diet. Some of my favorite tools are: Calorie Count.com Eat this, not that and all of the nutrition information available online. More on those later. I ate out twice today. Once with some of the lovely ladies that I work with and then again this evening for dinner. It was olive garden for lunch with my work peeps. A bowl of their minestrone soup is only 100 calories and SO satisfying. I had two bowls of soup and I may or may not have been tempted by a breadstick. And once I remembered that I forgot to defrost and marinate chicken this morning for dinner, we quickly made ...

A little bit about me... I live in Utah with my husband, Matthew, and our monster of a beagle, Charlie. Look at the innocent act he pulls. If you look closely you will see the remnants of our ottoman that he thought looked tasty. Matthew has been a huge support in my efforts to becoming a healthier version of myself. He is always around to let me steal a fry off of his plate but if I go back for a second one to threaten to stab my hand with his fork : ) Me and my husband a year and a half ago: Here is a picture of our fabulous footwear on our wedding day: You will get to know both Matthew and Charlie more as we go on. Also soon to come, current pictures of where I am today. Who are your biggest supporters in your weight-loss journey?

My name is SherRon and this year I'm losing weight and gaining a fabulous collection of shoes. Here is how it works: I eat less and move more and for every 10 lbs I reward myself with with a new pair of shoes. I've been on this journey for several months and about 56 lbs. So if you do the math that means that at this point I should have about 5 pairs of outstanding footwear. Meet the collection: The first 10 lbs- Miss Me Garnet-8 Shoe. My 20 lb pair- Madden Girl Setra Faux Suede T-Strap Platforms- Clearly I was on a bit of a ruffle kick. My 30 lbs pair- Madden Girl Sabelle Pump The pair I got are in a dark Burgundy color but this was the only pair I could find. My fancy 40 lb pair- Rocket Dog Women's Orient Dress Pump And my most recent 50 lb pair- Madden Girl Jazzii So there they are. The motivation that has gotten me this far. Welcome to my blog! Follow me as I work for a more healthy me.