Marvelous in my Monday {2}

I can’t believe Thanksgiving is done and over with and the Christmas season is now in full swing! Pretty soon it will be January! We had a fantastic week, busy, but great! My husband was off all week, so we were able to spend a couple of days with just the two of us while the 3 kids were in school and then solid family time Wed-Sun. I have been straight up exhausted today, it will be an early bed time tonight for all of us. I didn’t take a ton of pictures this weekend, but I did manage to capture the highlights.

Thanksgiving is always at my mom’s house and there is usually about 25-30 people by the time family and extended family arrives. Lots of cooking and cleaning, but always worth it!

Normally, I stay the night Thanksgiving night at my mom’s house and we go shopping on Friday, but I just wasn’t up for it this year, so I went home and slept in…was marvelous!

After waking up late and enjoying a lazy breakfast, we decided to put up the Christmas tree and some of the outside decorations.

I just love the tree being up, makes the whole house seem a little more at peace.

Saturday and Sunday were spent doing some running around and then hanging out with family after Church before coming home and crashing last night.

Thanks for stopping by for my little piece of MiMM, read more here for a lot more!

What I Ate Wednesday {2}

Here we are, time for another WIAW post. Today was spent at my mom’s house doing some Thanksgiving prep work for tomorrow.

Breakfast this morning was scrambled eggs, a hash brown and 1/2 a grapefruit. I try to not eat a high carb breakfast and it seems to keep my blood sugars a little more stabalized during the day.

Snack was a Kind bar and an apple, I have been so hungry today, I can’t get enough food in me!

I honestly can’t remember what I had for lunch, but I know it was pretty much just snacking throughout the afternoon. I made a bunch of dishes for tomorrow’s feast, but my favorite thing to make every year is this Creamy Pumpkin Trifle. I found it on Dashing Dish about 3 years ago, and I have made it every year, it’s a family favorite and tradition now.

Dinner was oh so amazing. My Mom treated us to my favorite Mexican restaurant and the steak fajitas were everything I imagined they would be.

I hope everyone has a very Happy Thanksgiving and it’s a day filled with friends, family, good food and counting your blessings!!!

Today is hump day, bump day, so here is the bump at 19 weeks, 4 days. Almost half baked 🙂

Scenes from Thanksgiving

I feel like I’ve been under a rock for the past 6 days, the last time I logged on to anything relevant was last Wednesday morning. Yikes. But, I had a pretty amazing Thanksgiving, and while I’m sad that it’s over, it’s finally the happiest time of year…Christmas! But, before I get too ahead of myself, here are some scenes from our Thanksgiving.

Started my morning off with a 5K around my mom’s neighborhood. I’m so insanely slow, I’m hoping to blow this time out of the water by next year!

My legs were frozen by the time I got back, should have worn longer pants for sure!!!

Yikes. Can’t really tell I have dropped 10lbs…

From left to right: My sister in law, her baby girl and my other sister in law…both are pregnant, one is due in february and the other in january.

My brother and two dogs, not sure who passed out first…

Above brother’s girlfriend and my cute little nephew (my other brother’s baby)

My famous sweet potato recipe. I don’t even like sweet potatoes, but I ate plenty of these!!

Another brother who passed out

And another brother holding our little nephew (out of all the pictures I took, I don’t think I have any of him with his parents…)

After dinner, trying to stay away from the dessert table.

Cousins in their matching Christmas Pj’s

My 3 in their Christmas church clothes. Can someone tell me how they grew up so fast?!

Mamavation Monday

I missed last week’s mamavation monday, but I’m pretty excited for this post today!

Last Week: 206.4

Current Weight: 202.4

Loss: -.4

Total Loss: -10.4

What an awesome week! I’m finally feeling like I have a handle on things, I’m no longer starving all day long and thinking about food constantly, fast food doesn’t tempt me as much anymore and I find myself craving vegetables and foods that are actually good for me! It’s an amazing feeling!!

This week’s Mamavation Monday post is all about Thanksgiving.

What is your plan to avoid overindulging during holiday feasts?

This is something I have been thinking about since my meeting on Saturday and I think I’m ready to put it into words. For so many years, I treated Thanksgiving like a week long eating festival. But not this year. This year I’m ready for it mentally. Thanksgiving is not a week long celebration of all out eating. It is one meal on one day. I will be running (well, more walking than running) a 5K Thursday morning and will be having a normal breakfast and lunch before indulging in some Thanksgiving goodness. My favorite part about Thanksgiving is the stuffing. Anything else I can do without. I plan on having a single plate with the things I want most and the things that I only have on Thanksgiving.

I plan on enjoying the day with my family and friends and remembering everything I’m truly thankful for.

And remember this when other foods are tempting…

“This post is sponsored by Eco-foil and I’m writing this to be entered into a giveaway hosted by Mamavation – a community dedicated to obesity prevention & weight loss for women“

Not Giving Up

Looking around my meeting last Saturday I noticed a lot of people were missing. When I first joined that first Saturday in October, nearly every seat was filled and every week since then, more and more people have disappeared. Our leader pointed out last week that it’s the November slow down, typically people miss a meeting around Halloween and then say “forget it, I’ll start over in January.”  When I heard that I thought, well that’s just crazy…but I totally get it now. The weather is cooling and I find myself wanting all sorts of decadent foods that landed me in Weight Watchers to begin with! Just last night I had the thought:

“Maybe I should just forget it right now, enjoy the Holiday season and start fresh in January.”

I woke up this morning kicking myself for even thinking that! I have come way to far in the last 6 weeks to let it all go to waste and gain back the 9lbs I have lost and probably pack on even more.

No thank you.

I’m not giving up. I’m not giving in to my old thoughts and feelings. This is a new Jen. One who isn’t going to eat her weight in Thanksgiving goodies, Christmas cookies and every other decadent food this upcoming season will bring.

Will I have a few treats? Absolutely, but they will be planned for and marked down in my tracker. And, I will only indulge in things I really want, not eat just because it’s there. For so many years, I would find myself in the kitchen on Thanksgiving and just start eating…because I could. This year will be different. I am doing the cooking for Thanksgiving dinner and I can control what goes in my mouth and what goes on my plate. There are certain foods we only have on Thanksgiving, and those will be the indulgences. Foods like mashed potatoes, rolls and some other items will not be included on my plate.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t plan on depriving myself and making myself miserable through the Holiday season, I just want to be smarter about it this year and enjoy it without eating so much my whole body aches and screams in protest.

Blogger {Virtual} 5K

This is a virtual 5K sponsored by A Journey To Thin that will take place on Thanksgiving.

Here are the rules:

1) Run or walk (or elliptical, whatever you wish!) a 5k on Thanksgiving Day. If you have an organized 5k race planned that day, that’s fine- you can double dip by participating in this one too (Just run that race and tell me how you did)! Leave me a comment on this post telling me that you will be participating.

2) Mention in a post that you will be participating and feel free to display The Thankful Healthy Blogger 5k Button (found at the top of this post and on my sidebar) on your blog along with a link back to this post! Spread the word! I think that it would be awesome to get as many bloggers (and bloggers friends, family, etc.) involved as possible to make this an active Thanksgiving! Also, feel free to Tweet about or mention this post on Facebook! (if you Tweet about this giveaway, prior to Thanksgiving, you will get one extra entry for each day you do so. Please mention @AJourneyToThin in your Tweets so I can count your extra entries.)

3) Send me a photo showing that you participated. If you don’t want to show your face, take a picture of your running shoes or something- use your creativity. Also, send me your time. This is not a race in the traditional sense, it’s just about getting out there and getting active, but it would be fun to show times at the end, too. We’re all winners for participating and everyone has an equal chance at winning the Giveaway. Wouldn’t it be awesome to break your personal PR? Feel free to email me any accomplishments, such as the aforementioned! Email this to AJourney2Thin@gmail.com. Please send me this information by 6 PM CST on Saturday November 27th to qualify! Giveaway will end at that time.

4) The more people you get to participate with you, the more entries you will get. You will get one Giveaway entry per person that participates with you. You must send me a picture showing you and your participants. Get the family involved!

5) Have fun!!

I am so excited for this!! I hope a lot of you will join in!!!!