Good Ole' Coupon Clippin' Katy

Now that I am unemployed I have decided to try out the whole coupon thing. I have always refered to myself as coupon clippin' Katy because I am known to love a deal. And yet, I'm also known for having very expensive taste in handbags. "They" say frivelous. I say fashion investment. Let's just say I have had the same Louis Vuitton for 4.5 years (and probably will for quite a while). But I digress as this has nothing to do with coupons! OK back on subject. So in an effort to save money I have decided to try the whole coupon thing.

Now for the kids at home, it is not possible to get the values and savings seen on A&E's Extreme Coupons. We have essentially one major grocery store chain, HEB, and Super Walmart and Super Target. HEB does not have member cards and do not double or triple coupon values. So my dreams of getting $500 of groceries for $50 is unattainable. So what I have decided to do is try to stick to shopping list and use coupons when I can.

Today I ventured into CVS and used their Extra Care card. I also got some Extra Care bucks. Still unsure if results in true savings because the Extra Care bucks pretty much ensures that you will come back into CVS. Still undecided.

I'm Sooo Realities Bitch!

Being unemployed has its own challenges. I'm trying to be positive here. In terms of timing it really sucked. And yes I know that there isn't ever a wonderful time to get fired, I'm mean laid off. (I put this in because everyone tells me it is sooo much better to have been laid off than fired. Ummm not to my ego. I do get unemployment a wopping $415 a week with a max of $10K. and of course I can tell everyone I interview with that I wasn't fired, I was downsized, but I digress). We had literally just sold our house and had passed the opt out period. Originally we were going to sell our house, rent an apartment, and build our dream house. We are still proceeding with the plan. However, much more frugally. And apartment searching in San Antonio Texas is sooo not fun. First off every single apartment complex we have looked at are 99% occupied. For the kids at home this means that if you don't sign while you are there and come back a few hours later the one apartment in the worst location in the whole entire complex is gone. And no I'm not exaggerating. Trust me, I wish I was. Add to this the 106 degree Texas heat, again no malarkey here, and a 2 1/2 year old who is hot, tired, and constantly hungry. Not to mention long waits to even get to see the model. Basically we still don't have an apartment and a closing date of July 14th (we think). WTF? I'm trying to think that everything will work out and they by Christmas we will so be laughing at all of our "adventures" (read tantrums, crying, fights, panic attacks, and bad language (from me of course)). Let's hope it does. We went to church today to get some inspiration that God takes care of us. Right now I really need to believe this because I feel like my world is coming apart at the seems.

So My Company Decided I Should Stay at Home and Become a Trophy Wife

Yep it's true. I have now officially joined the numbers of those who are currently unemployed. Technically I was laid-off and not fired. I assure that this is little comfort. Ultimately it means that I may get a reference, probably not, because I pointed out the inequality of who they chose to keep, and unemployment. I have hated this job for the last two years. What is super entertaining is that I actually quit this job two and half months ago and they refused to take my resignation. All things considered I guess I brought this on myself. But what I can't wrap my head around is that I'm actually hurt. When I quit I almost euphoric. Probably because I was in control of the siutation. Now my ego has taken a hit. So I have given myself until next Wednsday to mope around and grieve. After that I will have to start figuring out what I want to do when I grow up and start getting in shape. My last excuse, too much work, has been taken away from me. What is really weird is that I haven't not worked a day in my life since I was 17 years old. I am truly out of my element. Obviously this is supposed to be a learning experience I just pray that I don't have to hit bottom before I learn what it is.

Staying on track with weight watchers and exercise

So far I have able to follow my diet and exercise routine. I'm using the "one day at a time" approach. This werks weight loss was 0.8 lbs. I
One of my main goals is to get back my lost muscle tone. I have lost tone and have gained some chub which I will be happy to lose. Unfortunately at 34 getting toned and in shape takes much longer and requires more work. Tomorrow is zumba so I'm excited about that. Its really a fun way to burn some fat cells.

Zumba and Krav Maga

In order to further motivate my fitness and weight loss efforts (I'm talking about you 7 lbs gained during Christmas) I have signed up for 6 weeks of zumba and krav maga. Zumba, which I go to once a weak with my sister Kassy, is crazy fun and high energy. I definitely sweated more than I had in awhile. For those unfamiliar with zumba it's a dance based exercise class that combines several different dance types like samba and belly dancing. It's crazy fun. I'm actually looking forward to the next class. Krav maga, which I take with the hubs, is israeli self-defense. This class was also fun and you learn practical self defense skills. What really impressed me about krav maga is that you actually get to punch bags that your partner/opponent holds. This way one can get the feel for throwing a punch or a kick. Taking these classes is definitely a great motivation for me to consistently work out and will hopefully help me reach weight loss and fitness goals.

And for Tonights Entertainment: Hip Hop Abs

Today has been a fairly good day. This morning we took our daughter for her teacher visit for preschool. If you take out the kicking, screaming, and rock throwing the visit went without a hitch. Hopefully tomorrow, her actual first day of preschool, will go smoother. And this is for both if us. Although I know this is a good step for her, I'm also sad that my offspring is growing up. One positive aspect of school will be the structure it provides. As my daughter has all the sins of her mother (strong-will, stubborn, etc) maybe they can teach her what I can't.

Another great thing is that we hot an offer on our house. I should have prefaced by saying after 82 very long days. For this who have never had the joy ( lots of sarcasm there)of selling a home let's just say this is an experience that would try the patience of saints. For one, keeping you house immaculate 25/7 sucks. Secondly having to corral the pets and then leave the house for two hours is almost inhumane. Especially with 3 back to back showings at two hours a piece, a toddler, and a cranky me. Not fun! But god willing and the creek don't rise this contract will hold.

And tonight I did hip hops. I have decided to try to be more consistent with my workouts which is why i ordered hip hop abs. Let me start by saying that the first workout was super fun. In terms of cardio benefit, i'd say this is moderate. However, i'm trying to stop being so perfectionistic about working out. Any exercise is progress I say.

I wish i could quit you cupcakes

One of the truths that I have to except is that I am an emotional eater. There I said it! My name is Katy and I am an emotional eater! When times are good, let's go celebrate with food. When life turns difficult I say seek comfort in the yumminess of cupcakes or brownies. However, my ego can't take the shame of my increasing pant size. Truth be told, I refuse to buy a bigger size so I squeeze myself into my garments, bulging seams be damned.

Of course with work and home selling all of my usual comfort foods are singing their siren songs to me. And what's worse, is that half of the time I give into temptation. Hell I run to it with open arms. Of course I realize that my toxic live affair with junk must stop. I plan to be stricter in my food selection. I am also planning to track my ww points and weight

Here's to new beginnings.

Back to weight watchers

After much deliberation I have decided to go back to weight watchers. As much as I wanted to succeed with the slow carb diet my success was ver minimal. Maybe it's because I'm only 8 lbs from my goal weight. I don't know. I will not miss eggs or eating beans three times per day. I will miss cheat day. This just means I have to plan mesls differently and get back into the weight watchers mind set. Will keep updating my blog. On Saturday I will post new stats.

Work Confusion

So this post has nothing to do with diet or cupcakes ( other than for comfort eating). Mostly it's a forum to vent my frustrations and confusion about where I work. Recently one of our senior team members left, which is sad because he was awesome. Our upper management said that they were going to hire an entry level person. Instead they are hiring a senior level. What frustrates me is that they don't move from within. There are two us who are awesome employees and have stayed at this company during tough times. Why not give us this opportunity? I realize that this is how business works.... But it hurts because I realize I'm in a dead-end job. Basically yo move up at my company I have to leave and then come back? WTF? Now that i have vented I will try to move. Maybe god is telling me to pretty up my resume and get the he'll out of dodge.

4-Hour Body Mostly Slow Carb Enchiladas

So the interesting slow carb recipe this week was slow carb enchiladas. I actually based this recipe on re one from the Primal Blueprint where they used crepes as tortillas. So I took this concept and made crepes. Let me just start by saying that this is supposed to be a simple process. Ha! After literally 10 attempts I got 4 crepes that were usable. I used chopped chicken breast mixed with canned enchilada sauce (I looked for the lowest carb one I could find) for the filling. I rolled those delicate little crepes up with the filling and topped with sauce, green onions, and cheese. Yes, I realize that the cheese breaks the "no dairy" policy. That is why I am considering this a "mostly" slow carb dish. It was actually really good! Will definitely make again. I served this with organic canned refried beans and topped with some more illegal shredded cheese. Yummo!
                                                    
                                                       Mostly Slow Carb Enchiladas

Back on the Horse

Now that I am back from business travel and vacation it is time to recommit to the 4-Hour body. Yes, I realize that many are able to successfully diet while on vacation. Unfortunately, I am not one of those gals. I am holding off on weighing in until Saturday which is my normal weigh in day. I'm hoping that this will put me right back in the swing of things...and speaking of swings...time to get back to my kettle bell swing. I totally thing it works. Considering the bare bones work outs that I have been doing, my body is remotely toned. Of course fake mystic tan spray helps with this as well.

Moving Sucks!

My husband and I, being apparently crazy, have finally gotten serious about putting our house on the market. We bought a wonderful lot last year in Timberwood Park and have been dragging our feet about getting our current home on the market. The rule of common sense being that it is more financially prudent to sell our existing home before we start building a new home. Thus we have been working like fiends to get this house in shape while working full-time jobs and watching a 2 year old.

As fun as this has been, we finally decided to part with some of our hard earned money (thank you bonuses) and are paying experts to paint and do some repairs around the house. My super optimistic dream is that we can whip this house into such fab shape that it will sell within 2 weeks. We definitely are relying on prayers to help with this.

Obviously working on the house has made keeping up our diet difficult. I have mostly been good this week. That is until tonight. What can I say, I'm an emotional eater and apparently a working eater. Whatever, that means. The next two weeks will be challenging as well. Next week I go to Boston for business and the following week is our cruise vacation.

Cheat Day - 4-Hour Body 3rd Cheat Day

So yesterday was my 3rd cheat day! All I can say is YAY! For me, this is what makes this diet liveable. During the diet portion of the week I look at my food pics and remember that on Saturday I can eat what ever I want. Unless it has corn, because I have a corn allergy. But that is for another blog entry.

So after weighing myself I started my fabulous sugary eating. So the hubs and I took the offspring to the movies to see Gnomeo and Juliet. It was actually really cute and she did such a good job of sitting through the movie. There we shared peanut butter fudge, dark chocolate fudge, and mexican vanilla gelato. Yummo! For lunch, I had clam chowder soup. (forgot to take pics of these....)

For an happy hours went out with the girls to StoneWerks which is a bar grill chain. So I had a super fab extra dirty martini and a baked crab dip with pita strips. Then I went home and had a romaticish dinner with the hubs while watching inception on video. This was fettucine alfredo and zuppa toscano from my fav the Olive Garden! I wish I could quit you Olive Garden! And of course had to end the day with cupcakes. This time we got the cupcakes from a place we had never tried before called Gigi's. I was pretty impressed. So I got a red velvet cupcake, kentucky bourbon pie cupcake, wedding cake cupcake, and midnnight chocolate cupake. The kentucky bourbon and the weddding cake cupcakes were fab squared. However, the other two were just average.

                                                                   Dirty Martini

                                                          Hot Crab Dip with Pita Strips

                                                                   Fettucine Alfredo

                                                 Cupcakes from Gigi's (2 Fabulous Views)

 

4-Hour Body 3 Week Results

So this week I lost only 0.2 lbs. I'm trying not to be disappointed with this. I mean ultimately it is still progress and I am still losing weight. Yet, I see other people's amazing weight-loss and get a bit jealous. I am trying to remember that this is a journey and that next week is another week. Plus, per the book for women it may take longer than men. As suggested by another gal's blog I think I need to take out the big guns and am trying the ice packs. I am not desperate enough to try the ice baths. God alone knows if I will ever hit that low. But ice packs for 30 minutes 5 days a week I can manage. : ) I posted my results in the tab named 4-Hour body results.

4-Hour Body Staying Strong

For some reason this Wednesday has been easier than most. I even went out to dinner did OK. It was italian so no beans, but I did a shrimp salad. My hope is that this is a sign of things to come. That this diet will become automatic, and dare I say it, a lifestyle. Others who have been on the diet, let me know if this is true. On Sunday I was soooo over beans. As I am from Texas, that is saying a lot. We normally eat beans in quite frenquently. Here is where I do my imiatation of Bubba from the movie "Forest Gump...there is borracho beans, refried, cajun red beans (as in with ricce), black-eyed peas, black beans, .....and so on. And trust me we have tried them all...vegan, seasoned with salt pork or bacon, canned,  or made from dried. But today I seem to be accepting my fate and am trying to get my inner bean chef on. I'm thinking of taking out the crockpot and making some sort of bean soup over the weekend. Maybe that will rekindle my luv for the humble bean.

In terms of exercise, I am happy to report that I have gotten myself up and have worked in the morning. Yay me! Wishing all of my other 4-hour body slow carbers the best the rest of this week.

A New Week on 4-Body Slow Carb Diet

So Sunday not only starts a new calendar week, but also starts a new diet week for the hubs and I. So we did our weekly pilgrimage to Whole Foods and spent a crazy amount of money for one week of food. At least for us it is. I gather we could eat out every dinner for the same. That said, this is about health and not economy.

I picked the brain of the author of another blog that I read on the 4-hour body (this is the link to her blog http://slim4life.pbworks.com/w/page/34786781/My-Diet-Log) bout whether to the second lunch/snack was an important part of the diet. I honestly have not been hungry for it. AND let me be clear here I am sick to death of BEANS. BEANS three times a day is hard enough, but four times a day??? But, missing the fourth meal could be why my weight loss numbers are lack-luster. This weeks goal is to eat the second lunch and to pick up the workouts. I am continuing with my kettlebell three days a week and am hoping to get my bootie up to do cardio before work.

BTW - tonights dinner was chicken cacciatore, with lentils, and cauliflower rice.

2 Week Results and 2nd Cheat Day

So this week I lost another pound and am down to 139lbs. However, my body fat has only gone down 0.5%. WTF? That is really what motivated me to do this diet was to lose the body fat. I'm tired of seeing my arm chub wiggle when I wave. And lets not even get into my wide (birthing hips). Shizzle! I'm trying to stay positive. In the 4-Hour body book the author notes that if you are over 40 (I'm not but I physically feel like I am - does that count) and have had children (which I have) then it could take 4 weeks to see dramatic results. Ultimately, I'm going to keep working the program and keep up with my kettlebell exercise. Although, I think I'm going to include my cardio in an attempt to restart my daily exercise routine. See my tab titled 4-hour results for more detailed measurements.

Now on to the favorite part of the Saturday edition of my blog, cheat day and of course the food porn pics. So today we went to BJ's roadhouse and I had a bowl of clam chowder and a strawberry martini. For dinner cheese soup and a baked potato with butter/sour cream. And would for my late night snack - cupcakes! I know shocker, but it would it be Katy's cupcake obsession without them?


                                                                    Clam Chowder

                                                                      Strawberry Martini

                           Red Velvet Cupcake (with hand for scale - This is a BIG cupcake)

Thursday - Keeping Strong on the 4-Hour Slow Carb Diet

So today was a better day in terms of both work and diet. I'm not going to say that I'm still not fighting temptation but I seem to be obssessing about the food I can't have left. One side positive side effect that I have noticed from this diet is the ability to sleep. I have had problems with insonmia since last year. Suddenly, I find myself sleeping deeply through the whole night. So much so that am having a hard time waking up. I'm super excited about this bonus benefit to the slow carb diet.

Tonights slow carb dinner was salmon with lentils and green beans. See pic below.

Tonight's Dinner - Meatballs with Shirataki Pasta

For tonight's dinner I decided to be a little adventurous and try organic spaghetti sauce with grassfed beef meatballs. For the pasta (drum roll please) we were brave and tried the tofu shirataki noodles (aka miracle noodles). I realize that in the 4-Body Tim Ferris doesn't really care for tofu, but we decided to give it a try and look at it as a rare cheat.

For the kids at home that wondering just how the tofu shirataki noodles were: Hmmm! Let's just say that the texture of this product brings to mind rubber bands. That said, if you can get past the weird texture it's not bad. Like most tofu products it really doesn't have a taste of its own. Instead it picks up the flavor of what is served with it, in this case tomato sauce. Would I eat it again? Absolutely! But keep in mind that I'm the gal who has made black bean brownies and black bean fudge.

Here is a pic of the leftovers from our dinner

Getting Back Into the Workout Habit

Before Thanksgiving, I would wake up every morning at 6:45 and workout. My workout at the time was the 5-Factor Fitness and then 30 minutes of cardio. Just before Thanksgiving I got sick and had to keep going to my job and to do the whole Thanksgiving thing for 20 people. Fast forward to Christmas and it was the same story. I was literally sick for 6 weeks and and to take oral steroids in order to get better. This of course means that my well-established workout routine was no more.

Now that it is February I am struggling to re-establish my workout habits. So far I have failed miserably. I have never been one of those people who enjoyed working out. It has just been a necessary evil to help me manage my anxiety. The 4-Body's kettlebell routine is super easy. However, I think I need to do more. Its not all about weight loss for me, better overall fitness and mental well being is really what I strive to attain.

I'm think the solution is start fresh on Monday and to set goals. Babysteps. My first goal will be to get up, get dressed, and do something. They say it takes 30 days to establish a new habit. I wonder how long it takes to re-establish a lost habit. I guess I will know in the coming weeks.

My question for my two followers and anyone else who wants to comment: How do you successfully establish a new habit? Any tricks to successfully working out every day? Any fun new workouts anyone has found?