I have been having protein shakes for breakfast.  The hubby likes them, too.  I had some quinoa pasta and mushrooms with marinara sauce for dinner, but I had some cookies, too, for snacks, so that was negative in money.   I am definitely losing money on the snacks, so I need to be careful.

I really love getting back to Metamorphosis!  Day One went very well, and my endorphins were running high afterward, which was   I did 15 minutes on the rebounder, which was GREAT.  It was really nice to do cardio on the rebounder.  It was exhausting, though.  I had to do five minute incraments.  I also did 15 minute Ballet Beautiful Arms.  So I did one hour today.

The rebounder I have is a Cellerciser.  http://www.cellerciser.com/  I have the half bending one, and I do have the stability bar to hang on to, like an old person.  ; )  David Hall, who makes them, is incredible, and has a neat testimony on his page.  You MUST be careful about what rebounder you buy.  You can buy very cheap ones for under $100, even sometimes under $50, and they will do horrible things to your body.  You can seriously injure yourself.  If you want to get a rebounder, make sure you buy one and invest in it.  Another reall good rebounder that is VERY expensive.  Another great brand is http://www.qibounding.com/rebounder.html, which are bungee cord rebounders, but those are VERY expensive.  The cellerciser is expensive, but not quite as expensive as a bungee rebounder.  The cellerciser can be slightly noisy, but it doesn’t bother me.

And don’t forget, if you haven’t already, to stop PIPA and SOPA!!  Check out this link:  https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/ 

I hope everyone had a nice day!  <3

So I am up to $18.25.  For sake of easy math, I am forgetting about my cute penny I found on my walk the other day, though it is still in my money jar and it will be counted at the end.

I am now home, though, safe and sound for a while, and I FINALLY get to start doing Tracy Anderson METAMORPHOSIS starting tomorrow!  I am SO beyond excited about it.  And I have access to my rebounder, so I will be doing the dance cardio mainly on that since it is so good for your lymph system. 

My weight has stayed the same, too, so still down only two and a half pounds.  I know it is because I haven’t been pushing my workouts the past few days and seem to do every other day, which is good, but not good enough.  I am definitely not making enough money for my year goal fund.  I unfortunately don’t have a working scale currently, so I will have to go by my clothing feel for a while, which, let’s be honest, is better any way.  However, I am feeling my love handles shrinking a bit, and my pants are starting to fit a bit better.

Well, it’s way past my bedtime, so I hope you all have a good night, or a great morning, whenever you read this.

<3

Well, my weight loss journey is going quite well!  In the first week, I am down two and a half pounds, from Friday to Friday!   I also have made a total of $16.76 from working out and eating well.

Yesterday and today for breakfast, I made myself a quick shake using unsweetened almond milk, vegan Sun Warrior protein powder, raw cocao, and a tiny, tiny bit of organic brown sugar.  Two healthy breakfasts = $1.00

For lunch yesterday was the…Cheesecake Factory, but I did so good!  I had a spinach, shitake mushroom, and goat cheese omelet (didn’t eat the whole thing), and one tiny bite of banana cheesecake.  It was a neutral meal, but my mom was so proud of me, she contributed 75 cents to my cause!   = $0.75

For lunch today, I had a small tuna sandwich, some olives, and some raw sauerkraut.  Neutral meal.

For dinner yesterday, I had some organic peanut butter and some “healthy” jelly on a few crackers.   Neutral meal.

For dinner tonight, I went to PF Chang’s and had the Singapore Street Noodles.  They are made of rice noodles and have chicken, shrimp, and veggies.  I consider this a neutral meal.  It isn’t fried, so that’s good.

For snack yesterday, I had blueberries!  = $0.50

For snack today, I had some homemade banana bread.  = $-0.50

I did not work out yesterday because we were in the process of moving, so I got movement done, but I am not counting any of that towards “working out.”

Today’s workout went well!  I went on a 25 minute walk, and…I FOUND a penny!  See, I AM making money working out.  ; )  I also did Buns of Steel video, so I worked out 75 minutes today.  I was feeling a bit lazy and was going to only do part of the video, but my sister said she would kick in 50 cents extra if I did the whole video.  : )  So I did.  I made = $3.01!

So my new total is $16.76!   It is great finding money on the ground, huh?

At dinner today with my AWESOME friends, we were talking about Tracy Anderson’s workout and Bootcamp.  I find myself missing Bootcamp.  I can’t wait to get into Metamorphosis starting Tuesday (hopefully) or Wednesday.  She just is such a great trainer.  When I see people who are consistent with her Method, the results speak for themselves.  I am also glad working out has given me two and a half pounds this week.  Hopefully once I get home again, I will be able to workout MORE.

<3

So I didn’t lose any weight today, but I didn’t gain anything.

I worked out for only a half hour today.  I did Ballet Beautiful Swan Arms, Tracy Arms, Tracy Standing Abs, and some freestyle Tracy leg/”normal” leg exercises.  We are in the process of moving, so things have been a bit crazy.  Come Friday, the craziness should die down.  So I made $1.00 working out today.

Unfortunately, my eating was HORRID today.  I had leftover Shepherd’s Pie today, so that was a neutral meal.

I had…donut.  -50 cents

I had…cheeseburger and fries…and milkshake… -50 cents.

Yeah, it was like THAT today.  Not proud of myself.  HOWEVER, if I wasn’t paying myself, and since I don’t want to really LOSE money, I made myself workout, whereas before, I would have been like, ah, whatever, I already goofed up today, what’s the point?  So that is one good thing.  I MADE myself workout to undo some of my poor eating habits today.

Tomorrow will be a much better day, I hope.  I feel awful eating what I did today, not just emotionally, but physically.  I need to tell myself don’t eat that food.  Bleh. 

It will be hard to weigh myself tomorrow, but I am making myself take the red pill instead of taking the blue pill.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_pill_and_blue_pill).  People think by not going to the doctor, their medical illness will just “go away” magically.  People think by not weighing their bodies, they probably didn’t gain “too much” weight.  I try to live life by always taking the red pill so I don’t live in ignorance, because ignorance is never bliss.  Just because you don’t know the problem isn’t there doesn’t make the problem go away.  When I don’t weigh myself, bad things happen.  Pants stop fitting.  Jackets stop fitting.  The heavier one gets, the harder it gets to lose weight.  Just not good things.

Do you guys feel sometimes it is just easily to live life taking the blue pill?

<3

Breakfast was a banana peanut butter almond milk vegan protein shake made with Sun Warrior protein.  +50 cents

Lunch was a salad and minestrone soup.  +50 cents

Dinner was Shepherd’s Pie made with organic grass fed beef.  Neutral meal.

Snake was pineapple.  It ALMOST was Ben and Jerry’s, but I resisted temptation.  I really wanted my 50 cents!!  +50 cents

My workout went well, too!  Had room today to do Buns of Steel, and it was really hard today, which is great.  It feels like it is getting harder in a way because I am pushing more, so that is good.  I also tried my Ballet Beautiful Swan Arm workout, which was 15 minutes long.  It was SO hard!!  Very calming, but very effective for sure.  It was totally worth $8 to buy it streaming.  It is a really great workout.  I also added TAM standing abs (Valentine’s Day and Stacy training YouTube videos), which is six minutes long, and then I did four minutes of some free-style leg exercises (which were hard).  So I made $2.50 working out today!

So I made $1.50 + 2.50 = $4.00 today! : )  Very happy with that!

I would get more of the Ballet Beautiful streaming videos, but that takes me to another part of my blog: Budget!  I already used up my “allowance” for the month, so no more buying until February.  :/

Do you guys know who  Gail Vaz-Oxlade is?  She has a show on CNBC called “Til Debt Do Us Part.”  She is FANTASTIC!  She also has a few books about money.  I have always been into finance, but I haven’t always been the best at it, and I got myself in trouble a few years ago.  Not HUGE trouble, but I definitely wasn’t as responsible with money as I should have been.  My husband is fantastic at it.  So this year, I really want to take the responsible plunge and become more strict with myself.  Last year (even last month), I would have just bought all the streaming videos, but since I used up my money for a month (I bought the new Naked 2 Palette from Urban Decay at Sephora online, as well as a few other things), so no more fun shopping for myself.  And I don’t want to use my exercise/eating money, because that is for the BIG gift at the end of the year.

Gail is all about the Jar System (it is like the envelope system) and using cash and not debit cards to pay for daily things.  This year, I would really like to get control of many aspects of my life, like shopping and being healthy, as well as getting more organized.  Shopping and eating have always gone hand-in-hand for me.  If I was happy or sad, I would shop and then eat a fun meal to keep that “high” up, which I am sure I am not alone in this.  Also, my husband and I eat out WAY too much, especially while I was in Houston last year, so I am going to try to cook a lot more, especially from scratch.  I feel like it would be SO easy to eat a bunch of cheap crap, but then I would just be more fat, so I DON’T want to skimp on healthy food to save a buck.  It will definitely be a challenge to cook healthy on a budget.  I am hoping to even start gardening this year to save some money, so we will see if that will happen.

Have a great evening! <3

Today’s workout was all right.  We are in the process of moving things, so the whole house was a bit of out sorts.  I actually really didn’t have much room to workout today, so I did some TAM YouTube videos for abs and arms, and some basic workout movements, like wall push-ups, tricep dips, squats, lunges, that type of thing.  I only worked out for a half hour today, so that was only $1, but it is still something.  Honestly, if I wasn’t paying myself, I would not have worked out.  I also wasn’t feeling super hot today, so that was part of the reason for the modified workout.

For breakfast, I ate pineapple and a banana.  I know it is a lot of fruit sugar, but it just sounded so good, and it was super satisfying.  So since fruit is good, I earned 50 cents for that.  For lunch, I had a tuna sandwich with some tomato and some raw sauerkraut, so I would say this meal is neutral since it is no junk food, even with the mayo.  It wasn’t very much mayo.  I did lose 50 cents for some froyo today.  For dinner, I had quinoa/corn pasta with some marinara sauce, so since it was no white flour, I would say it is a healthy meal.  So my net food for the day was again 50 cents.

So I am now up to $8.00!  

Also, the 50 cents is just how much I can afford to do this.  Some of you can afford to do more, some of you can do less.  The idea is to just do something for yourself, so just say you can only pay yourself 10 cents for working out 15 minutes or per healthy meal, you should do that!  The point is that by the end of the year, buying yourself, YOURSELF, something fabulous with the money you worked hard for.

I can’t quite decide what I would like to purchase at the end of the year.  Part of me thinks I should buy something practical, like new carpet, or put it in savings, but THAT isn’t super inspiring, is it?  A new big TV to workout with would be great, but I kind of what that sooner than the end of the year if I can get one.  My downfall, however, has always been designer purses.  I have a Coach now, which I love, and I have a few of those, but I would really love a Louis Vuitton.  I have wanted one for probably seven or eight years.  I know some think it is absolutely ridiculous to buy something so outlandish for that kind of money, but I think every time I would see that purse, I would think of how hard I worked for it, and it would remind me of the accomplishments I made.  My sister thinks I should get that purse because it’s what I really want, and I will work quite hard for it if that’s what I have in my mind to purchase.

So who knows what I will buy with it!  But that will be a fun time by the end of this year when I get to buy whatever I want because of my hard work in eating right and working out.  If I don’t work out enough, I won’t be able to even GET that purse!  If you guys are doing this plan, what would YOU buy?  Do you have some big purchase in your mind?

I definitely can’t wait to get into Meta when I get settled back at home in a little over a week.  However, I still really love doing Buns of Steel.  My butt is definitely getting more steel like.  ; )  I do have a few awesome friends I met on Facebook, Jude and Lynda, and they have been talking about Ballet Beautiful, and I so far bought the Swan Arms workout streaming, I viewed it, and it looks really good.  She was the trainer who trained Natalie Portman for Black Swan.  Here is the link if you want to order streaming videos or DVDs:  http://www.balletbeautiful.com.  They look very hard yet calming-ish at the same time.  I am an exercise video junkie.  I just like to do a bunch of different things.

The important thing is to just keep GOING and to keep  doing SOMETHING and be consistent with it.  Again, taking things day by day, one day at a time, is really the only way to live life.  My family lives with uncertainty each and every day because of stupid metastatic cancer, but in reality, we all live with uncertainty in life.  So let us make this day count for something.

<3

Sunday was much better!  I made $2.00, so my total for working out is up to $6.00.

Also, I finally figured out how I want to get paid for eating.  It will be 50 cents each meal.  That way, I won’t be like, well, I blew it already for the day, what’s the point?!  So three meals plus one snack equals up to $2.00 to be earned.  If I eat a healthy meal, I get 50 cents, a neutral meal is nothing, and a “junk” meal costs me 50 cents.  So I ate two healthy meals today.  My breakfast was a protein shake with peanut butter, banana, and almond milk with the Sun Warrior protein.  Lunch was vegetable soup and a salad and some watermelon kumbucha.  Dinner was a neutral meal with non fried, fresh corn tortillas (two) some fresh pinto beans, grass fed beef, and a little bit of cheese.  My snack, however, was not healthy, so that cost me 50 cents.  I went to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie with my free movie pass I had, and I ate some candy for the movie.  I don’t really regret it, but I had a net of 50 cents profit for eating today whereas I would have had $1.50.  (By the way, the movie was pretty lame compared to the first one.  :/  I loved the first Sherlock, but I was a bit bored in this one.  It felt like someone made a movie from a fan fiction story.)

So my total money is $6.50. 

I did Buns of Steel for the third time, and it was REALLY hard this time.  I am feeling it a lot.  I also did my Lotte Berk Back Dancing clip, and some Tracy Abs and Arms YouTube clips. 

Life is once again a bit hectic this week and will be less hectic after Thursday, and then much less hectic after NEXT Tuesday, so the next week and a half I am really going to try to keep up my workouts and eating well.  After I get back settled at home, I really want to increase my workouts and try to hit two hours.  One problem I have is the fact that I work for myself, I lose money working out that I could potentially be making by doing more work.  I definitely need to get more on a schedule and try to be more organized, which is always a work in progress.  But I won’t have to work out for two hours forever, just for a few months to really push myself.

Good luck to all you guys! <3 

I didn’t have a chance to take my measurements or pictures yet, so I will try to do that for sure this week.

We were in Houston while my sister attended MD Anderson Cancer Center for nine, yes NINE, months, living out of an extended stay hotel.  That is long enough to grow a little baby!  To be honest, I thought it would be easy to workout there.  It was just my sister and myself for most of the time besides some visits from my parents, friends, and family during that time, but for some reason, it just didn’t happen.  I think it was the chaos of it all, not having a car, taking shuttles and taxis to and from places, and just plenty of wasted time doing that, waiting for doctor’s appointments, et cetera.  Also, I am giving some major excuses.  I could have worked out, and I did sometimes, I just didn’t stick with it.  I was in a total emotional and physical funk the whole time I was there. 

We were in walking distance of a grocery store, Kroger, which was good and bad.  Good, because since we didn’t have a car, I could get the groceries and carry them home.  Bad because when I wanted Ben and Jerry’s, I could decide between walking down to the hotel lobby or walking over to the grocery store.  I went to Whole Foods about three or four times during the whole time I was there, and Houston was full of yummy, bad for you food.  I medicated myself with food, and I gained…ready…about 35 pounds.  35 POUNDS!!  IN A YEAR!  Isn’t that horrible?  It IS like I had a baby or something in that nine months being gone. 

We came home around the end of November, and I finally got to my HOME in mid-December.  We are back visiting my parents, but soon I will be home again.

I have NEVER been this heavy in my life.  I went to the doctor, and I had to weigh myself twice to believe it.  The nurse was horrible and old and was like, “Well, you do look like you could weigh X amount.”  I started to cry.  My sister, who is VERY honest with me, says I don’t look like I weigh this much, but I just feel icky.

Anyway, I feel ready again, ready to hit it hard and make changes.  It makes me so angry and upset with myself, because if I had just done SOMETHING for the past year, I wouldn’t be in the place I am.  If I had just kept up with working out, I would be much happier.  But we can’t live in the past and we can only take life one day at a time, right?

So I am approaching this at a whole new angle.  I got the idea from Pinterest (so addicting, by the way).  PAY yourself to work out!  Instead of always saying, when I lose 10 pounds, I will treat myself and buy that new sweater, I am going to pay myself for actually working out and eating well.  This way, by the end of the year, I can get something fantastic and will have actually worked for it.  Maybe I can still do rewards along the way of losing pounds, but this way, I won’t be beating myself up the whole year.  It’s like a lifestyle, and if I don’t want to work out, I won’t get to pay myself.

Here is how I am doing it:  50 cents every 15 minutes.  So an hour of working out, I get $2.00.  I do not lose money if I don’t work out, I just don’t get paid for that day.

I will post a real pick of my jar when I get home.  I am also throwing in any spare change I find in it, ’cause I CAN! ; )

I am also paying myself for eating well.  Perfect is $2.00 a day, which means NOTHING bad, no bad bread, sugar, that type of thing.  $1.00 is reasonable healthy food, no junk food.  Starting Monday, I am going to maybe subtract money if I eat junk food.  What do you think?  I was thinking maybe 50 cents or a dollar, but I’m not sure yet.  Not getting the money seems to do enough for me.

I am still getting my diet figured out.  I have been starting to use this protein powder, Warrior Blend from Sunwarrior: http://www.sunwarrior.com/warriorblend/, and it is really great.  It is made with pea, cranberry, hemp, and coconut.  It is a lot better tasting than rice protein, only a little chalky tasting.  And it is pretty reasonable, especially if you buy it from iHerb.com.  I think it comes to about $1.00 a serving or so, maybe even a little less.  I know Tracy Anderson came out with a protein powder that costs around $4.00 a serving, but I feel like this might be higher quality, even though I think hers seems to be good quality, too.

So far, for two days, I have  made $4.00.  I have worked out twice for 50 minutes and 70 minutes the past two days.  I would eventually like to workout for about two hours a day because I want to get this weight off FAST.  Right now, I am doing the old, original Buns of Steel by Greg Smithey, which I LOVE.  I honestly think it is my most favorite video of all time.  It is beyond cheesy, but it’s so happy, and it’s so HARD.  It is a little lazy hard, though.  You get to lay down for a lot of it, even though the leg work is very difficult.  If you want to purchase it, you can buy it here:  http://www.originalbunsofsteeldvd.com/.  You should read the reviews on Amazon, they are ridiculously awesome.

I am doing some YouTube Tracy Anderson standing ab videos (Stacy and V for Valentine’s Day), a Tracy arm video, and then back dancing (butt thrusts laying down on your back) from a Lotte Berk video I had.  It feels great to workout again.  Eventually I want to get back into Metamorphosis, though I wish I would have bought Glute or Hip instead of Ab.  But, I can always switch when I get to Continuity.  I mean, really, any exercise is better than NO exercise, and I think it will be great.  When I did get back from Houston in October, I did go to a few classes of the Dailey Method, which were fantastic!  I got sick, though, so that threw a kink in working out, like, REALLY sick, but the classes were great.  They were expensive, though, but the ladies in there look amazing, very tight and tiny.  And SO MUCH lululemon, which I like.  It was weird, though, because I was the fattest girl in the class.  And, yes, I did gain weight this past year, but it just goes to show how fit that class can make you.  All those barre classes I feel are great.

So that is the big update!  I am going to take pics and measurements this weekend, so stay tuned.  Much love to all of you!  I hope this year will be GREAT!

Crystallizing is gemming.  There are different types of gems you can buy.  Rhinestones can be made with glass, acrylic, gem quartz, metal, or paste.  The best crystals you can buy are glass, and those are Swarovski.  If you are gemming an item for a small child, though, Czech crystals, which are still very high in quality, are better because of the lead content in Swarovski Crystals, and kids have a tendency of ingesting items.  If I were to Crystallize my skin, I would also probably use Czech crystals.

Swarovski has many different shapes and sizes of crystals, but their most common for decocarting items are regular flatbacks or heatfix stones.  I am finding myself more liking to work with heatfix stones because they are very secure on the fabric.  I am working on some big projects right now, and I would eventually like to open up a shop on my blog with some projects I am doing.

Crystallizing is so inspiring, and you can gem nearly ANYTHING!

Here are some items I have Crystallized:

This was my old phone back in 2008.  This was the third phone I had Crystallized with Swarovski Crystals, the first Android based phone, the G1.  I used 9 ss in Fuchsia, Rose, and Light Rose, darker to lighter.  I used GemTac, but I wasn’t too happy with the way it held up over a long time.  My first phone I gemmed lasted wonderfully with GemTac.

I had some left over crystals, so I gemmed my Tarte makeup brush.  This was in 2010.  This was the first time I used a two-part epoxy glue.

This is my most recent phone, my Android Samsung Vibrant phone.  I did this phone this year.  I used all different sizes of Aurora Borealis Swarovski stones, and I decided to go a bit more chaotic with the design, randomly placing crystals.  I used about five different sizes, though if I could do it over again, I would add about two or three more sizes to make it that much more ecclectic.  I used what I had on stock, and it was probably one of my most fun gemming projects personally.

For my pics and instructions on how to do these Leopard Shoes, go here: http://www.bombshelllolita.com/?p=122 :)

Decoden is a Japanese form of crystallizing items, but they don’t need to be all crystals.  They can be fun, cute little cabochens made up of plastic, glass, or clay.

My first decoden project was a plain gold and mirror necklace I purchased at Forever 21.  I added flatback pearls purchased at Michael’s, though Swarovski make some nice flatback pearls.  I purchased the rose at a bead shoppe.

For more pics and instructions on this decoden mirror compact, go here:  http://www.bombshelllolita.com/?p=69! 

Here is a different type of decoden, more of a whipped cream look.  You can use squeezable caulking silicone and cake frosting heads to get more of a cake look, but I used an art median, glue, a cake head, and white paint.  I wasn’t too happy with this look, and I will not be doing it again, hence I didn’t do a blog about it.  It didn’t hold the cake frosting look I was going for, but it did hold the items well after a very long time of drying, months.  I was a bit concerned about fumes with silicone, but I think if you do it outside, get a basic silicone with no latex or vinyl, and wear a mask, it shouldn’t be too bad.  You can always look up the MSD sheet of toxic products online or at the hardware store to see just how toxic and harmful fumes can be.  When I do try silicone decoden style, I will do a blog post on it.  I did make the bow and rose out of clay with molds, though.

Last but not least, my tiny 8.9 Acer Aspire One Laptop Decoden cover!  I bought my supplies all over the place, ranging from Michael’s to bead shoppes to online gem suppliers, my favortie being Dreamtime Creations.  I will do a tutorial on how to achieve this look.  It is a super fun look for a computer, though, and I finished off the side with a white lace trim.  If you don’t want to permanently glue items to your computer, do what I did and buy a peal-away vinyl sticker made for printing a computer skin and simply gem that.  That way if you get board or need to have a professional computer, you can take it off when you need to.

And those are my Crystal Creations for now.  What have you guys done?   

I lost an entire pound this morning!  Total weight loss in two weeks has been four pounds!!    I am very happy.  It is, again, so nice getting to eat the foods you like and STILL lose weight, for the long haul.  I hope to drop 8 pounds this month, but 10 would be fabulous because I will be in the next weight decade.  But I will be more than happy with eight.  I have a feeling I might be up, though, tomorrow.  We shall see…

Workout was REALLY good today!  Since my shin splints are so much better, I decided to take it sitll a little easy, so instead of doing dance cardio, I did the Elliptical at the hotel.

• Cardio:  40 minutes (yay! longer) Elliptical
• Abs:  40 reps (yay!) and some freestyle ab dancing since I didn’t do Bootcamp Cardio
• Arms:  40 reps
• Legs:  30 reps

The legs were REALLY hard today.  I also added 20 extra plies and 20 tricep pullovers and 20 tricep overhead squeezes with a 3-pound weight for the arms.  I just felt like a little extra for the arms.  Triceps are always a doozy of a problem.

I have 10 bonus PlusPoints for Weight Watchers left over for Saturday and Sunday.

I have fallen in love with Dreyer’s Slow-Churned ice cream.  I have the Cookies and Cream flavor (the Kroger near me doesn’t have Cookie Dough Flavor, what the fridge?!) but a half a cup is only 3 points.  I feel like I could make my own milkshake now with it and use 10 points up instead of 20 found in normal ice cream, and it would be just as good.

I don’t want to eat ice cream all the time, but it’s nice to be able to if I wanted to and STILL lose weight! <3  So happy about the four pounds.

And I SHOULD be taking before photos tomorrow as well as measurements tomorrow.

Have a fabulous weekend!!! <3