Update on my kids

Since this blog is intended for our families to keep up on what we're doing, here is an update on the kiddos:

Amelia has started pre school and is loving it.  She has blended in very well and has been making lots of new friends.  She also takes dance class and dances her little heart out.  Her imagination is as vibrant as a unicorn saving a princess from the jaws of a dragon and flying over the rainbow to safety.  (Her favorite game.)  She loves to ride her bike (a two wheeler, no training wheels), go swimming, run, jumps, and most of all dance and sing!  She is constantly entertaining us with her performances.

























Joel is the jokester of our family.  He is constantly looking for new ways to make us laugh.  This photos is a perfect depiction of just that.  He is growing so quickly and loves everyone!  He is quite the charmer with the ladies and Amelia is his favorite one, well, next to his mommy of course.  He loves to ride his bike, run around wild and crazy, play hide and go seek, pretend to be a dinosaur, and is learning his ABC's as well as to count past 10.  He is always amazing us and a joy to have around.

We feel very lucky to be the parents of these two kiddos.  They keep like exciting and entertaining.

Follow me on my new blog!

Hi everyone!  I've decided to start my own blog all about my discoveries in health and leave this one for my family (which I promise I'll be better at updating!)  So please come follow me at:

kimthehealthnut.blogspot.com

I'll see you there!

The details: Stats

Almost all of us like to know the nitty gritty details about people losing weight and so many of us don't talk about those details.  So I'm going to lay it on the line; you'll know my starting place and where I'm currently at.

This is me today:

(I've never had definition in my biceps like this before!!)

Nov 2010 weight: 170lbs / 77.1kgs
Nov 2011 weight: 140.5lbs / 63.7kgs
(in high school, a bit over 10yrs ago, I hovered around 150lbs / 68kgs...so this is quite exciting)

Nov 2010 BMI: 30
Nov 2011 BMI: 24
(for more information on BMI - Body Mass Index, click here)

Nov 2010 clothing size: a tight size 12
Nov 2011 clothing size: I can fit into a 4!  (and buy small or x-small in most things)

This is a lifelong journey.  The process is still ongoing.  I am still averaging about 1lb loss every 2 weeks.  In the beginning it dropped quickly, now it's slower but my body is much stronger and I have much more energy (which is a really nice feeling).

I don't eat processed sugar anymore (stick to organic blue agave when needed).  I don't eat refined flour or white bread of any kind.  Everything is brown in our home.  We consume a LOT of fresh veggies and fruit.  I'd say roughly 70% of our grocery bill consists of fresh fruit and veggies.  Mostly veggies.  I'm learning to really love them like I never thought possible.  I was a VERY picky eater as a child so this is especially surprising to me.  :)

Next up, I'll chat about overcoming the S.A.D. diet...

A New Way of Life: One Year Anniversary

I've had a lot of people ask me recently about making the switch to a whole food, plant based (vegan) diet and why I did it.  Next week will mark my one year anniversary of making the switch, so I thought I'd make a few posts about my journey...and why I'm not looking back.

This is me a little over a year ago.  Yikes right?!  You know that pink flowered picture could be something out of a horror film!

 

I was in a place where I wasn't feeling well, I hurt all the time, I was dead tired by the end of the day, and could not keep up with my kids, so I went to go and see a doctor with the suspicion of Fibromyalgia, (runs in the family).  Sure enough, he confirmed what I thought, gave me a prescription for a drug that sounded pretty scary, (side effect: feeling high most days.  Yeah right!  With 2 kids to look after?  I don't think so!) and said, "Most of fibromyalgia can be controlled by diet and exercise."  Right!  That's all I needed!  That was all I needed to hear!  This was NOT going to be something that controlled my life.  I was going to control it!  

I had a friend who had talked to me about a book called, The China Study and about losing a ton of weight by switching to a whole food, plant based (vegan) diet.  So I called her up and we sat down and she laid it all out for me.  She gave me tons of recipes, work out plans, books to read, and the best thing of all, all the encouragement I needed.  She was my rock!  So I went home and ordered The China Study.  When it arrived, I sat down and had a good read, loaded up my Netflix queue with all kinds of stuff to keep me motivated, and got to work.  I walked through my kitchen with a garbage bag and threw out all kinds of junk food.  And I wasn't looking back!  (Good thing I'm married to a really supportive guy!!)

It's not easy to make the switch, the first week is certainly the hardest, but as soon as you make it past that, if you've got the support you need, you can do anything!  You'll crave all kinds of stuff, you'll go hungry because you've got no idea what to eat, and you'll learn to love all kinds of vegetables that you never new existed!

So over the next few posts, I plan to lay out tips and tricks that helped me.  I will give you resources to check out, websites to peruse, videos to watch, and hopefully a little bit of motivation to get you going.  

Thanks for reading!  Stay tuned and tomorrow I'll show what I look like today!

Look what I made!!

Amelia is very much into girlie dresses these days. She actually has a dress that we bought from Costco a while back that she tries to wear EVERY SINGLE DAY!! So I decided it might be a good idea to make a few more pink dresses to try and sway her from that dress. Here's how it turned out:



Perfect for adventures. Looking for turtles...


Spotting a turtle!


And perfect for plenty of twirling and dancing!










If this looks like something you'd like to try making, you can follow the tutorial HERE. It's pretty easy and a lot of fun to make! And just think how lovely your little one will look wearing a lovely pink dress. :)