Starting Over

Is anyone still out there?


If you are, I'm sure you have not abandoned working toward goals over the last 8-9 months, even though this blog has been woefully neglected. (To be fair, Michal and Rebecca both had babies last year. They had/have their hands full. I was watching my niece and nephew on top of my own three...my hands were rather full too.)

However, I want to resurrect it. The beauty of a New Year is that you can do that.

Start over.

So here I am, starting over.
I have a few goals that I would like help with. I need help with. So, if you would like to come along with me I have few ideas for Healthy Habits to work on this year.

1. I want to cut out sugar. Here are a few reasons why: http://rheumatic.org/sugar.htm

2. I have stopped using my credit card (except for buying gas, since I have to use it for that.) I have not used it at all so far this year. It's still early in the year, but I am really determined to pay off the (smallish) balance for good.

3. I want to deepen my relationship with Heavenly Father through meaningful prayer. By praying morning and night, on my knees, aloud. I get lazy a lot and don't do that. And by really expressing my true deep feelings, instead of just going through the motions. Again, this will overcome my laziness.

So, if there is anyone still interested in jumping back into some Healthy Habits, post a reply. Let me know what you are working on. It can be any of these (please, someone cut out sugar with me...), or something all your own.

If we help each other, we can accomplish what we set out to do.

The Results Show

I am so sorry that I have dropped the ball on this. I guess I am just not in a place right now where I have any business sponsoring challenges:). Although the challenge itself was good for me, the tracking, blogging, and assessing fines portion of the challenge is, well, a challenge! But I would like to announce the winners of our challenge and invite everyone to look at their fines on the spreadsheet and send them to me. If you don't have my snail mail address, please email me: sleepymumATgmailDOTcom.

In the exercise category, (drumroll, please) . . . . .

Donna is our big winner! She exercised 63 days in 10 weeks. Most impressive!

In the scripture study category, we have a two-way tie between Katrina and Rebecca. Congratulations, girls! They never missed a day of reading the scriptures during our 10 week challenge.

The overall winner (the person with the most total points) was Donna, as she only missed 2 days of scripture study in the 10 weeks and we already know she rocked the exercise.

So, if everyone sends me their fines, the prizes will be awarded thusly:

The total pot is $259 (assuming that everyone pays up).

We'll divide it in fourths. Donna will get half because she won the exercise prize and the overall prize. Katrina and Rebecca will each get one fourth for the scripture prize. Does that sound fair?

If you have questions or concerns about your fines as calculated by me, please let me know via comments or email. The pot may change if I made a mistake (and a couple of you never put in any points for the last week, which may have been an error.)

Thanks to everyone for participating. I'm so sorry that I wasn't a better coach in this challenge. Anyone interested in taking over this blog and keeping the challenges going? Anyone?:)

Repairing the Fortress

For those of you who don't know, I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. For my part of the scripture challenge, I've recommitted to reading the Book of Mormon each day.

These last weeks I've spent in the latter half of the book of Alma, the part with all the wars. I love these chapters. They parallel so much in life, and I see them much as parables.

The thing that really stood out to me this time around was the constant need to be aware and keep our fortresses strong. Captain Moroni and his men strengthened the weakest city until it became the strongest, and couldn't be taken by force. The only way they lost their cities was by having strife and problems with their own people.

This so much parallels modern-day life. No matter what we do, it's so important to focus on keeping our strengths strong, and building up those places where we are weak. Be that physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually, these all are where we need constant watchtowers. By setting goals we better ourselves and keep better watch over ourselves and our families. It's much easier to repair or begin to repair the weak spots when we are keeping guard and looking out for possible maintenance problems.

I've so much enjoyed this challenge, and building up some of the weak spots in my life. I hope everyone who has done this has gotten a lot out of it. I know I have.

The Home Stretch!

I am sorry that I have been absent. I have been participating in our challenge but have really slacked on the blogging. Thanks to Aubrey for keeping us afloat over the past few weeks.

This is it, ladies! We have one last week to go! For a while it felt like our challenge would never end, but now I can't believe that we're starting week 10 tomorrow. I know that most of us have struggled to meet our goals, but I'm feeling like we have not struggled in vain!

I promise to get fines and points up-t0-date in the next couple of days, so we can know where we stand.

How are you feeling? Did anyone else get their second wind like I did? What changes have you seen in yourself? What do you wish we had done differently? Please leave a comment with some feedback.

And let's go out strong. I'm committing to tougher, longer workouts this week and more time with the scriptures. How about you?

Plugging Away

I took a blog break, but am back. I had every intention of posting yesterday, but didn't! I don't have anything new or inspirational to say, but that the finish line is in sight, so keep plugging away!

I am proud of all of us!

Knowledge is Power

At a recent Weight Watcher's meeting the topic was the five steps of change that everyone goes through when forming new habits, or changing not so good habits.

I found it very insightful and it applies to everyone. It is human nature and what everyone experiences whether we know it or not.

But knowing and understanding the process of changing habits can really help us make those changes and stick with them. So I thought I'd share these steps of change with you.

1. Precontemplation: This is the happy (or not so happy, actually) stage of being unaware of a problem. Or even denial that there is a problem.

2. Contemplation: This is when we are aware that a problem exists and are thinking about doing something to change, but have not yet made that commitment.

3. Preparation: This is where we are ready to take action to change. We've made that commitment. Perhaps we are learning about what we need to do and intend to follow through.

4. Action: This is when we are working to modify our behavior. Working on a habit; going through the motions. It takes considerable time and energy and commitment...as we ALL know!

5. Maintenance: Working to prevent relapse. Sticking to the new habit.
(One thing that I read online about this says that for addictive behaviors this can take from 6 months to an indeterminate amount of time...in other words it takes a long time to break an addiction.)

Of course, relapse can occur and then we need to asses where we are in the cycle and get back to work.

I hope this is helpful to some of you! If you want more info about this you can go here. Or just google it like I did.

Have a great weekend!

A Little Pick Me Up

I haven't ever shared a recipe on an blog before. Not because I am not a cook. I am. A pretty good one even. I just have not wanted to do that. Until today. And I don't know if this can really be considered a recipe, because it is really however you want to make it, but it's yummy and a guaranteed pick me up. Just ask my 1 year old:

Actually, these pictures do not do justice to breakfast this morning. This kid had smoothie ALL. OVER. HERSELF. She'd drain her little cup and then stick it out begging for a refill. "Please, sir. May I have some more?" (Name that movie.)

Green Smoothie:

1-2 cups of spinach

1-2 cups (or more) frozen fruit

2 Tablespoons honey

water

optional: a couple of tablespoons of flax meal

Blend it all up in the blender and serve. You can use fresh fruit and and ice if you don't have frozen.

My kids love this stuff. And it gets spinach in them. Spinach! And it's low-cal and refreshing.

Hope this gives you some great energy to keep on truckin' along in your exercise routine!