Sum It Up Saturday

Whew, I got behind on updating here the past few days. I have been so tired and have been dealing with some extreme back pain the past few days. I hope you all had an AMAZING Thanksgiving. I know I certainly did. Not all of my family could get together, but we still had a great time. I woke up super early to start prepping dinner and get the turkey in the oven (which barely fit into my mall oven). We started our Thanksgiving off with a 1 mile walk (and my youngest ran the 5k course)

It was chilly, but we had a lot of fun doing this together!

Afterwards I went home and started cooking our feast. Family arrived and we had an awesome meal together.  I was STUFFED and couldn't even enjoy my pecan pie indulgence until much later that night!

After everyone left, I propped my feet up and relaxed.

I did manage to earn quite a few activity points Thursday!

Friday, my boys were ready to decorate for Christmas. We had a lot of fun getting the house and tree all ready for the holidays. Here are a few pics!

He just couldn't resist getting into box and smashing his face against the plastic!

And even though I didn't quite reach my goal, I was close!

Today has been spent sleeping in, laundry, grocery shopping and packing for mine and hubby's trip to Las Vegas. I am so excited that I found a Santa Run (or walk for me) while we are in Vegas. I signed up right away!!!! And it is on Fremont Street which is so awesome. 

For anyone interested in trying the Plexus Products, they are having a great Black Friday special through tomorrow. Visit my link for more info or feel free to email me. 

http://karigoodman.myplexusproducts.com

Well, I'm gonna say bye for now. Sending you all love and healthy wishes!

Keep Losing,

Kari

What A Wednesday

Wow! What a crazy day it has been. Got up early and cooked turkey, gravy, corn, green beans and stuffing for all of our employees. Everyone pitched in and we had a wonderful lunch together. 

We had so much food and so many desserts. We don't all get to sit down together very often. 

BUT while I was cooking, my large oven went kaput. It got way hot and then started beeping some error. I got it to work again, but it did the same thing. And of course no one can come look at it until next week. And I have a dinner to fix tomorrow using only my small wall oven. But we will make it work!

After lunch I caught up on office work since we will be gone for a week. Then it was errands in town and then back home to clean up my kitchen and finish the housework I hadn't completed yet. 

And our plans for tomorrow have changed. I am not going to share all the details yet, but I do ask for some prayers for my family over the next few days. We are still having a dinner with the family that can make it and it will still be a good day! 

I also have a 5k to walk tomorrow before preparing another Thanksgiving dinner. However, I am feeling pretty mellow. Might help that I ended my evening with the hot  tub and a glass of wine!

And even though I didn't get an "official" workout in, I still managed to earn 5 activity points!

Well, time to watch Survivor and get to bed. Have an early start in the morning!

Sending you all love and healthy wishes and a wonderful day tomorrow!

Keep Losing, 

Kari

Crazy Tuesday

Today has been a CRAZY day!  Got up and started my routine and before my first cup of coffee I had to pick my sick son up from school. Managed to drink a cup quickly before my chiropractic appointment. My chiropractor is still concerned about how tender and sore both of my si joints and sacrum are. They would like to refer me out for two other possible treatments. One involves steroids and I won't try that until a last, last resort. The other is a pain management specialist where he would do localized injections. I have decided to wait for my new insurance at the beginning of the year to try this. In the meantime, they gave me a TENS unit to use on my back. I used it this evening and it did feel good. I am just tired of hurting so bad I can barely sit. 

After the chiropractor, I headed to the gym. I did 20 minutes on the elliptical and  a 30 minute training session with Sam. She even made me a protein banana smoothie afterwards since I was headed to Walmart 😱. Walmart was a madhouse, but I think I finally have everything I need to cook two Thanksgiving dinners. 

Came home and cleaned, cleaned, cleaned. Washed windows, scrubbed baseboards. Definitely hit my activity goal for today. 

Just finished a nice hot Epsom salt bath and getting ready to curl up to a good book. Gotta get up early to cook turkeys for our dinner at work tomorrow. 

Well, I'm signing off for tonight. Sending you all love and healthy wishes!

Keep Losing

Busy, busy, busy, busy

I have been terrible and haven't blogged in over a week. Man my life has seemed so busy and I just stepped back from here to lessen the burden.  BUT

I'm still chugging along on my journey. Been fighting some sinus junk the past week. 

Our schedules are crazy this week. Cooking dinner for our employees on Wednesday, a 5k Thursday morning, then preparing Thanksgiving dinner for about 15 people at my house. Boys want to put the tree up Friday. Sunday we are having friends over for a football party and Monday hubby and I are off to Vegas  for some vacation time! (Which I think we will definitely need). Been working hard getting my house clean and it never seems to be clean at the same time. We have kinda a big house and my workout yesterday and today has mostly been cleaning!

I know we all tend to feel stressed or overwhelmed this time of the year. I know I need to step back and remember that spending time with my family and Friends should be the number one important thing. 

People won't remember how clean the house was or how beautifully decorated or the lovely meal. People will remember the relationships and conversations and just time with loved ones. 

Tune in tomorrow for a Thanksgiving Tranaformation Thursday!

Sending you all love and healthy wishes 

Keep Losing,

Kari

Fitness Sneak Friday

So at our Weight Watchers meeting yesterday we talked about ways to sneak in fitness!  I thought I would share some of the ideas we came up with:

• When going shopping, park farther away from the store! Every extra step counts!
• Walk up and down each aisle, even if you don't need anything from every aisle.
• Use a shopping basket instead of a cart if you don't need much.
• Set a timer in your kitchen for every hour so you have to get up and turn it off.
• Download an app on your phone that will remind you to get up and move every hour.
• Squeeze activity into the commercial breaks of your favorite TV shows.
• Do leg lifts or squats while fixing dinner or doing dishes.
• Walk to get your kids instead of texting or yelling for them.

What are some ways you can sneak some fitness into your every day?

Remember every little bit helps.  Doing a little every day is better than doing nothing!

Tomorrow, there are about 20 teenagers coming to my house for my son's 13th birthday party! UGH! I was so glad that my son requested a veggie and fruit tray for his party (and cupcakes), but at least there will be some healthier options for me to grab and munch on!

Simply Filling Chili with Fat Free Cheese

So I used 6 of my 49 weekly points yesterday!

Sending you all love and healthy wishes!

Keep Losing,
Kari

Thursday Weigh-In Results

Happy Thursday!  Today is Weight Watchers day!  YAY!!!

And here are my results (remember this is for 2 weeks):

YAY! Back on track and down 3.2 for a new grand total of 91.6 pounds gone!  Here is my equivalent:

To find your's click here! 8,255 nickels gone off of my body! Pretty cool!

AND, I am so excited that I got the new ActiveLink 2.0 today!  I can't wait to get it out of the box and start using it.  I will share more next week once I am more familiar with it!

Also (while kid and hubby free) at Wal-Mart today, I found this:

It all stacks together with an ice pack, perfect for packing my lunches.  This set included:

2 snack containers (0.5 cup)

2 side containers (1.2 cups)

2 divided trays (0.8 cup and 1.8 cup)

1 entree container (4.1 cups)

AND 2 blue ice packs

And here is my workout from the gym this morning:

That is it for today! Tune in tomorrow and I will be discussing this week's Weight Watcher's topic, "Be a Fitness Sneak."

Sending you all love and healthy wishes!

Keep Losing,

Kari

Plexus Slim Intro

Hello! My name is Kari and I have been on a journey to better health  for a little over 2 years now!  I have great results with my weight loss using the Weight Watchers program, losing 87.4 pounds so far, starting at 402.2 and currently at 314.8 !  I have also gone from being mostly sedentary to working out at least 5 days a week.  I have joined a gym and work with a personal trainer 3 days a week.

Even though I had made this AMAZING progress with losing the pounds, my health was still not quite where I would like it to be.  Here is just a brief list of my medical history:

• legally blind
• chronic migraines
• fibromyalgia
• insomnia
• irritable bowel syndrome
• chronic fatigue
• arthritis 
• allergies/sinus problems

I could probably list forever to be honest and I know that weighing 402+ pounds contributed to part of those issues,  

A couple ladies from my church tried the Plexus Slim products and one had some AMAZING results with some of the same issues I was having.  

I had been to the ER 2 times in one week for a severe migraine the week before I was invited to this meeting about Plexus.  I won't lie, I was skeptical.  I have always preached that weight loss has no magic pill.  But when I attended the meeting, one lady spoke about how much these products have helped her chronic migraines.  Honestly, very little was really talked about losing pounds.  80% of the talk was an improvement in many of the same health issues I was facing.

ALL Plexus products are 100% natural and the benefits I heard about honestly sounded too good to be true.  But I figured I had tried A LOT of things to help my health, why not just give it a try?  

So I signed up as an ambassador to get the better prices on the products.  I was not really looking at the weight loss portion of these products at first, I just wanted to feel better so I could be a better mom and wife.  I started taking Plexus Slim, ProBio5, and BioCleanse on Friday October 31, 2014 and I can honestly say I am shocked at how amazing I have felt.  I have not had one migraine, just a minor headache once or twice.  I have not weighed, I don't know if it has helped my weight loss yet, but I feel SO good.  I have so much more energy and I am sleeping better at night.  I have recently added in a few more products and I will write about them as I have more results to share.

If you are interested in learning more or trying any of the products, click here for more info.

I also created a Facebook page today to accompany this journey alongside my Winning Loser page.  

https://www.facebook.com/plexusprayer

And if you don't follow me on that page you can find me at:

https://www.facebook.com/awinningloser 

I post all about weight loss and fitness including what I eat everyday!

I am so excited to get to share more about this with all of you.  

And to my loyal blog readers, I will not be using this blog to talk about Plexus ALL THE TIME or try to sell you anything.  I plan on devoting one day a week to discussing the products!

That is it for today!

Sending you all love and healthy wishes!

Keep Losing,

Kari

Unofficial Thursday Weigh-In

Well today was a total bust. We had to take my car to the shop yesterday for a recall repair and they didn't get it finished until tonight so I'm not picking it up until the morning. So iwas stuck at home ALL day, missing the gym and my Weight Watchers meeting. I was so bored, but I got a lot accomplished here. 

I did weigh in at home today and was down 2 pounds! Yay! This is unofficial and I will have to wait until next Thursday to get an official number. 

I think I may go back to counting points this week. I really like Simply Filling, but I feel like I'm not eating enough some day. I figured the points for a couple days and was only at about 17-20 out of the 48 I would get otherwise. So I think I am going to try to still eat mostly power foods, but fill in more with nuts and other healthier non power foods. 

That is all for today. Short and sweet!

Sending you all love and healthy wishes!

Keep Losing,

Kari

What I Ate Wednesday

Happy Wednesday everyone.  Last night I hosted an introduction to essential oils class at my house. I really wanted to serve some snacks, but I wanted to keep it healthy. So I thought I would share what I served with all of you. 

Big bowl of berries

Meat and cheese plate 

Sub rolls, almonds, and hummus

Fresh veggies

Pretzel thins

Skinny Pop

Everyone was pleased with the choices and there were no tempting foods left over when everyone left! 

Tomorrow is weigh-in day and I have had a great week of eating! However I am going to be happy with whatever the scale says because I feel AMAZING!

I have been using the Plexus products now for several days and next week I will be more confident to give you some feedback on it. 

Sending you all love and healthy wishes. 

Keep Losing,

Kari

Have I wasted an entire year?

Today marks two whole years since I joined Weight a Watchers for the umpteenth time and actually stayed with it.  The first year was AWESOME weight loss wise, but this past year has not been as good to me scale-wise. I am actually a few pounds heavier today than I was on this date last year.  

So did I waste this entire year weight loss wise?

At first I think yes, I could be down another 100 pounds and be so close to my goals.  But then I look back on the past year and remember the health challenges I have faced and the amount of emotional turmoil those have caused. 

I have had two female surgeries, two foot surgeries, and an eye surgery. Lots of recovery time, lots of inactive time, lots of not always eating the right things. 

Maybe I haven't lost any weight and kept it off the past year, but I can say that I have learned so much about myself. I have learned how strong I am. I have learned to love myself. I have learned how to live a healthier lifestyle. 

And all of that makes the past year just as important as the first year.  A number on a scale is not the only indicator of success.  Year one was spent on physical changes,  year two has been all about learning who I am and loving that person.  

I thank all of you for supporting me though the past two years.  I can't wait to see what year 3 has to offer!

Have an awesome weekend!

Sending you all love and healthy wishes!

Keep Losing,

Kari