Friesen Talk

Writing about all the big & little things

Category: Weight / Excercise (Page 2 of 4)

Officially signed up for my first 5K

February 11, 2014 / / 2 Comments

running

Yup, I’ve decided to just bite the bullet and sign up for my first 5K of the season.  It’s actually the race that goes right next to our back yard, so the kids can sit on the deck and cheer me on as I run … er,  mean, slowly jog by!

It’s called the Celebration of Children 5K.

The race is on June 7th.  Which is coincidentally the same day that one of Tim’s cousin’s is getting married so I’m going to have to run quick right away in the morning and then get booking it to the wedding which is a few hours away.  We’re not exactly sure what time the wedding is going to be, so I sort of took a gamble signing up for it but I’m extremely hopeful that the timing will all work out.  And I really wanted to do this race since it’s literally right around our neighborhood.  Also, as a tid-bit of random information:  it is organized by a family that I used to teach piano.  They are a delightful family and I’m happy to help support them and in turn support our schools.  I guess a portion of their proceeds go to the Shakopee P.E. programs.  See?  It’s a win win!

And for now, I’m going to keep on working out and hopefully once it actually warms up I’ll be able to start jogging outside.  🙂  That would be good, eh?

9 Reasons why I like Slim Fast (right now)

February 4, 2014 / / 3 Comments

No, I’m not being paid by Slim Fast to promote their product or anything… but I got to thinking about it the other day and I realized that there are a lot of good things about it (at least for me, right now). So here are my 9 reasons I like SlimFast right now (yeah, I wanted it to be 10, but I couldn’t come up with a 10th…)

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9.  The name.  I mean who wouldn’t like the idea of getting “Slim” Fast?  😉

8.  It has lot of good vitamins and nutrients in it.  I know not as much as eating actual fruits and veggies, but it’s a process…

7.  I don’t have to think about what to eat.  I just know I’ll have my shake.

6. I get to use my 3 (yes THREE!) awesome “shaker thingys” (I believe the technically term is Gravy Shaker?)

5.  I can take my shake container and mix anywhere easily.  All I need to find is milk.

4.  I can down it really fast, so it gets me out of the kitchen faster and away from temptation.

3.  It tastes super chocolatey, so I feel like it’s a treat.

2.  I get a glass of milk in with every shake.

1.  And the number one reason that I like SlimFast right now is because it’s helping reach goals!  Little baby goals, but goals nonetheless!

January has been busy and full of depressing weather.

January 27, 2014 / / 2 Comments

Yup, is COLD again today.

Sigh.

I think I saw a real temp of -17 and a wind chill of -47.  But I admit I’ve stopped actually looking.  Or trying to look ahead.  It’s just so ridiculously cold!  So, since it bums me out, I’ve just started to pretend it’s not so bad.  Almost all the schools are cancelled again today, but Shakopee already had today scheduled off for the quarter break, so we didn’t have to worry about it.  There have been rumors that tomorrow will be cancelled as well, so we’ll see.  I don’t mind winter, and I don’t mind cold, and I don’t mind snow, but I HATE WIND and I DISLIKE it THIS COLD.  So the combination of the two is quite depressing.

But onto happier things… In other news, January has been busy for me.  Somehow I get to the end of the week and I wonder where it has gone!  I started working out again, which was a big step for me.  No monumental achievements yet other than not being really really sore every day.  I finally feel good enough to trot up and down stairs again with ease.  I know if I stick with it I’ll make progress in the right direction.

Also, we had Piano Preliminaries this past weekend (which I already wrote about) which I am hopeful many of my students did well at.  That has filled up most of the lessons for the past month working on the details and memorization of their contest songs.  I will get the results tomorrow or Wednesday in the mail.  I’m excited to see how they all did.

My teaching schedule is VERY full.  I was full before, but I now have 2 High School girls who have jumped in as “on-call” students, since I didn’t have any regular slots open for them.  So if I get a cancellation I can quick contact them and see if they want to come and they can get a lesson in here and there.  That has filled up any of my gaps throughout my week.

We’re also enjoying being social again.  We finally have the space to invite friends over more often, which has been wonderful.  It was one of the things we talked long and hard about when we were searching for a larger house–needing to be willing to use our space to cultivate more relationships.  I admit I was a bit nervous about it, since I am a very “planned” person.  I don’t do well, just inviting people over on a whim… but I’m happy to say that the longer we are here the better is has become.  And we’ve only been living here for 3 months!  And I didn’t realize how much I was missing being social… my only issue I’m still working through is trying to be social without eating an excessive amount of food at each gathering.  I’m still working through it… 🙂

A learning experience

February 22, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Not all smoothies are pretty.  In fact some are VERY ugly.

I made the mistake of combing strawberries, blueberries, spinach, and banana–it turned to a sort of brown sludgy color.  VERY unappealing looking.  It was actually quite tasty, but I just couldn’t get over the color as I drank it.  I finally just guzzled it down and closed my eyes.

I thought about taking a picture of it to show you, but then I realized that was just cruel… 😉

I’m slowly learning which flavors I can combine with spinach and which fruits create an awful color.  It’s a definite learning experience!

Pretty {Purple} Smoothie

February 21, 2013 / / 0 Comments

This week I ran out of spinach (I hate when that happens!) so I decided to make a fruit smoothie with protein powder instead of my regular peanut butter smoothie.  It’s not all bad–I really am getting tired of the peanut butter taste.  Did you think that could ever happen?!  Get tired of peanut butter? Never!  Well, actually yes…

So I found I had frozen strawberries and blueberries and then I mixed in a banana and vanilla protein powder a little milk and {voila!} a delicious and strikingly beautiful smoothie!

See?

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I let Chloe have some too and she thought it was extremely tasty as well!  🙂  She was so intent on getting every last drop out of the cup that I didn’t notice what a mess she was creating all over her face.  Finally I walked back into the dining room as I was saying “Did you like it Chloe?” and she responded “Yum!  It’s delicious!” and her face sure confirmed that!

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Skinny Saturday: Don’t Quit!

February 2, 2013 / / 2 Comments

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This morning Tim had a men’s bible study social event.   He’s leading a small group for church this winter.  It’s an early Saturday morning group so he thought it would be a great idea to put together a breakfast for all the guys.  He was expecting a rather big group, so he decided to go the whole nine yards:

  • Pancakes
  • Scrambled Eggs
  • Bacon
  • French Toast sticks
  • Orange Juice
  • Donuts

Is your mouth watering yet?

Mine was!  In fact as I watched him load up the pounds of delicious food, my stomach seemed to be actually growling audibly!  I have such a soft spot for breakfast food… ugh!

However, while he was gone this morning I forced myself to do my workout (even though I didn’t want to!).  Then when he came home a little later, with a ton of left over food and I let myself have one of the left over pancakes (that were delicious!) and then I stopped.  Did you hear that?  I stopped. 🙂

The Baker’s came later in the morning for their piano lessons and we were able to give them a bunch of donuts to take home with them.  Thanks goodness for that!  We still have quite a bit of left over donuts (I guess they all filled up on pancakes and bacon and didn’t have much room left over for the donuts…)  but it was nice to be able to give some away.

As I got ready to eat lunch I opened the fridge and gazed at all the left-overs and donuts.  All I wanted to do was gorge on donuts.  All I wanted to do was make a giant plate of cheesy scrambled eggs and greasy bacon and pig out.  But I didn’t.

It’s days like today I have to remind myself why I started.  Why am I doing this?  Why do I want to lose weight so badly?  What’s my true innermost motivation?  What do I hope to gain from all of this?

……..

And then I remember… it all comes back to me.

So I loaded up an extra giant bowl of spinach, grabbed a banana and water bottle, and walked away from the fridge.  🙂

 

Skinny Saturday: Tea (my secret weapon)

January 26, 2013 / / 1 Comment

 

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I’ve mentioned before that weekends seem to be the hardest time for me to stay on track.  And this continues to be true, but I have also discovered that I have a second “hardest time” that I need to battle through every day.

It’s the dreaded “Evening: 6:00 – 10:00” I can stay on track pretty well throughout the day but after supper I get munchie.  You know what I mean.  I just want my mouth to have something to chew… chocolates, popcorn, chips, cookies, etc, etc, etc… And it’s never the healthy food I crave.  Nope.  It’s the stuff that I can’t seem to stop pigging out on.

So, I’ve started drinking herbal tea after supper.  (I can’t have caffeine after 4:00 so it has to be something caffeine free or I’ll never get to sleep.)  My favorite right now is Peppermint Tea, but I picked up a sample pack the other day to try some new flavors.  I’m still working my way through them, but so far none of them top Peppermint for me.  The nice thing about tea these days is that it’s nice and warm–which is nice.  Especially this past  week when we were stuck in the negatives for days!  Plus it’s an extra glass of water in my day, which is so much better for me than a handful of chocolates!  It usually takes me 10-15 min. to finish a cup and by then I usually have my resolve back or am not quite as hungry anymore.

I’m not generally a tea drinker (I prefer coffee in the mornings) but this has helped me continually get through that dreaded time of day–as I’m hoping it will continue to do!

Our new gym routine

January 15, 2013 / / 1 Comment

Chloe and I have started “going to the gym.” I decided it was time for both of us to expend some energy–me to do something good for myself (and hopefully work towards loosing weight) and Chloe because she needs to work off some energy.  She is starting to act out now that it’s winter and has so much energy bursting out of her.  And since she doesn’t generally like playing alone she doesn’t want to run around in the yard…

So we’ve started to go to the track at the community center.  I’m slowly starting to walk less and jog more, but it’s going to take me a long time to be able to jog consistently.  But hey, I’m moving again.  And that’s what matters.

Chloe walks around the track with me and then she gets to take a break on the bench while I jog for a little bit, then she jogs along with me for a little bit until she gets too tired.  It’s good for her–plus it makes the time go faster for me.  🙂

Of course, this whole outing is going to take a little patience and fine tuning.  It’s going to take a bit for her to really understand that she needs to stay out of the way when she’s there with me… and that she can’t just play and goof off.  Sometimes she’s awesome and other days it’s a definite struggle.  Most of the time it’s older people just walking on the track so they don’t mind her boisterous activity, but there are other days when I can tell the “serious” runners get a slightly annoyed.

But even though it’s taking work, I still think the activity as a whole is good for both of us.  I’m very hopeful that we can continue our gym outings together and that she will enjoy being able to really stretch those legs and run off some energy!

 

Weekends are the hardest.

January 13, 2013 / / 4 Comments

I find myself eating more on the weekends.  Why is that?  Somehow in my mind I must feel like the weekends are for “letting loose” and being lazy and eating whatever I want.  So…….. I’m working on that.

And I’m pleased to say that this weekend is going very well–and, hey, look!  it’s already Sunday afternoon!

This week I finally tried making a “Green” Smoothie.  I’ve been interested in trying a smoothie with spinach for some time, but I wasn’t sure I would like it.  Lo and behold, I do!  Well, I’m not actually THAT surprised because it does also have a banana and some peanut butter and greek yogurt… but when all is said I get to count it as 1 fruit, 2 veggies & 2 dairy.  Plus it keeps me full for quite some time which is a wonderful bonus.  And did I mention how pretty it is?

This is from the website that I got the recipe--but mine was just as strikingly green!

This is from the website that I got the recipe–but mine was just as strikingly green!

What’s that?

You want to try it too?  Well, I thought you might… so here is the link: 🙂

http://iowagirleats.com/2012/01/04/my-top-secret-diet-weapon/

 

Hello 2013: A new beginning!

January 1, 2013 / / 2 Comments

January 1st.  A new year.  I admit we missed ringing in 2013 and were in bed long before midnight–the joys of having little kids who don’t understand the concept of sleeping in.  Tim was a gem and ventured out into the bitter cold  this morning to let me start off the new year with a delicious cup of coffee from Caribou.  It was wonderful.  🙂

So, here’s to a new year full of endless possibilities.    I’ve been thinking of  new year’s resolutions and my vision for the next year.   I’ve decided that I really have goals than resolutions.  Sure maybe they are synonymous but I’m learning as I get older that my will-power to hold to something is waning.  So, I’ve decided I favor the word goal over resolution.  That way I can set a goal to accomplish “X” number of things this year and if I have a really bad month, no big deal, because I still have more months to catch back up again.  Some of my goals are very broad, but some are specific.  Of course, another thing I’ve also discovered about myself as I get older, is that (how does that saying go again?) “my mouth is much bigger than my stomach.”  I make extensive lists and plans and then am only able to accomplish a tiny portion of what I want.  Maybe that should be a goal–that I actually try and do what I set my mind up to do!  🙂

I’m still working on figuring out what exactly I want on my goals list for this year, but here are a couple think I know I’m adding:

* Finish Chloe’s First Year Scrapbook

* Finish Josiah’s First Year Scrapbook

* Read “The Blessed Woman”

* Lose weight

* Fill the remaining open lesson slots

* Practice piano more

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