Which Diet?

It used to be that for me to lose the baby weight that I gained while pregnant, all I had to do was to start moving. I didn't eat a lot in the first place (except while pregnant) so eating too many calories was never my problem. So once I would start walking or exercising I would lose the excess weight fairly quickly. Now, I am NOT saying I am overweight or obese or anything, but I am also not where I want to be. I don't think I'm at an unhealthy weight at all, but like most women, I'd like to be a little bit better and way more toned and healthy.

Since I don't eat a lot, but I don't necessarily eat the right stuff, I know that this is the most important change I need to work on and that is why it is one of my goals. The Biggest Loser's new season started last week and the theme for this season is "no excuses". Well I'm going to start off with an excuse, but an excuse I'm no longer going to allow to rule my world. It is difficult to get fresh produce at a decent price here in Texas where I live. The closest Farmer's market is at least 30 minutes away and there is no such thing as Whole Foods or Trader Joe's here either. Sprouts is 30 minutes away as well. Growing a garden in this crazy place (because of the weather) is difficult. Granted I didn't really try. Okay so that is my excuse for not eating more fresh fruits and veggies. Plus until recently when Jeff got a job that actually pays well, it was a little out of my price range to buy lots of that stuff. Anyway, that has changed so I'm going to change. But I'm also the type of person that needs to be told what to eat.

I was looking into a couple of "diets" and none of them have felt right to me. No carbs or low carbs and tons of protein, to me, seems  to go against the Word of Wisdom. After all it says to eat meat sparingly. Well I was at the gym the other day reading a magazine and it was talking about the Zone diet. It was just a short synopsis of what it was about and it sounded to me like a pretty balanced type of diet because it includes a little bit of everything and focuses a lot on fruits and veggies. When I started reading more into it, it wants you to eat lean protein with every meal. I cannot eat meat with every meal. Maybe it means eggs and other proteins too, I'm not sure.

Then my friend introduced me to the Fit Yummy Mummy. That diet raised a red flag for me because she says she doesn't like whole wheat or cereals and no dairy whatsoever. I'm fine with limiting that stuff, but for me it is unrealistic to cut out cereal or dairy. I love me some Cheerios!


So I turned to LDS.org to read up on the Word of Wisdom. I found an interesting conference talk by Boyd K Packer. http://lds.org/general-conference/1996/04/the-word-of-wisdom-the-principle-and-the-promises?lang=eng&query=word+wisdom you can read it there. But parts of what he said kind of struck me. There was one part where he was talking about how people justify certain food/drink choices saying that it doesn't say to avoid that in the word of wisdom. They need it to specifically say to avoid it in order to stop doing stuff they know is harmful to their bodies. He then quoted this scripture:  He who must be commanded in all things, the Lord said, “is a slothful and not a wise servant” (D&C 58:26). Wow, pretty straightforward right? But it got me thinking that the Lord is giving us our agency. He has given us the guidelines of what is good for our bodies, now we need to use our brains to make sure we don't put anything into our bodies that is addictive or habit forming in any way. I feel blessed in the fact that I really am not addicted to anything, I might be border line with sweet stuff, but I have never liked soda so that is something I have never had to deal with. And I am certainly not placing judgement on those that enjoy soda pop. I don't know where I'm trying to go with this, I just know it took me by surprise his combination of following the word of wisdom and the scripture in D&C 58. 


It also talked about this in regards to being a vegetarian/vegan. For example, the Word of Wisdom counsels us to eat meat sparingly (seeD&C 89:12). Lest someone become extreme, we are told in another revelation that “whoso forbiddeth to [eat meat] is not ordained of God” (D&C 49:18). ¹  Thank goodness because I don't think I could give up meat, even though I don't eat a lot of it, I still enjoy a good burger every once in awhile. And bacon, I LOVE bacon, but it is so filled with fat! Lol, that will not help my diet much will it?

I read this and before I posted it, I sent it to my awesome step-mom Ruth. She sent me something that I am going to try to implement in my diet. It is really so very simple, you wonder why people make it so hard. Oh, because it is a great money maker that is why! Here it is:

Perfect portions for a healthy new year

Knowing what to eat and how much we should be eating can be so confusing! The 2010 United States Dietary Guidelines have made it much simpler. They’ve created a visual showing an actual plate with appropriate portions of food. The Guidelines recommend we fill half our plate with fruit and vegetables, one quarter of our plate with grains i.e. rice, pasta, barley and one quarter of our plate with protein sources such as chicken, beans, fish, meat etc; And on the side, have a serving of dairy--1 cup of milk or yogurt, 1 ½ ounces of cheese or ½ cup of frozen yogurt.  Heck yeah! Did you see that last one? FROZEN YOGURT. I like this diet already. It also said this: The one minor but important detail left out is what is considered the standard plate size. The average plate most of us find today is 10 to 12 inches. A 9-inch plate is best to help control portion size which helps to lower the calories on our plate! If you’re trying to gain weight, then you’ll need to go with the larger plate, still filling half your plate with vitamin and mineral rich fruits and vegetables. For good health, it’s also important to look at the quality of your food. To feel your best, include a variety of fruit and vegetables, eat low fat or fat free dairy, make at least half of your grains whole grains, and when possible use less salt in your food. Also think about your drinks—quenching your thirst with water instead of sweetened beverages will not only help you save calories it will help you avoid that dreaded sugar crash in the middle of the day. I feel like that is essentially what the Word of Wisdom is teaching us, right there summed up by Ruth. Perfect!  Oh and I have totally gotten into Zumba. It is tiring but so much fun. You don't even realize you are actually working because you are having so much fun! I hope there is a great place close by my new house! Okay I'm done. I hope I can make this new (not really) diet work for me. I guess I have to do like mom says and eat my fruits and veggies! Actually my mom always said I needed more protein. I told you, I really like my cereal! Awww I miss my mommy!

Whoever said buying a house was fun?

It is not fun! It is hard and stressful and full of emotional roller coasters. The end product will be fantastic. I really see us staying in this house for a very long time. That is of course because I am refusing to ever move again. At the very least not until Zack is on his mission. Then I might consider buying a house on the beach in San Diego just big enough for the two of us. :)

view from the front room, same side as the front door.

back of the house

view from our window, it shows how big the yard is. The air force base tower is just to the right of this picture. (yes our house parallels the landing strip. Probably the only negative that I don't like about this house)

Bedroom upstairs, probably Ethan and Zack's room

Andrew's room

closet under the stairs

bathroom downstairs

bedroom downstairs

family room, looking from the dining room

another view of the family room and formal living space

Front rooms

view from the front door

Finally, the front of the house. Not sure why these pics are so out of order

There is a jack and jill bathroom between the boys rooms upstairs

Kitchen

laundry

master bathroom

master bedroom

our closet

Pantry (Can I get a HALLELUJAH?!)

Park right down the street from the house

back of the house

So we were pre-approved by Wells Fargo and I thought we were good to go once we found out they accepted our offer on this house. Little did I know, when I went to go send over the signed counter offer acceptance thingy that I would be in for a very stressful weekend and evening. Yeah, for whatever reason that I still don't understand, Wells decided to decline us. Thankfully our awesome Realtor had a lender she uses all the time and so I called her up. We are still waiting on some things before we have the official approval, but it is looking good and I am so glad to have a lender that really knows what they are doing. So if you live in Arizona and need a lender call me up and I will give you their number. :) But it is looking good now, and we are having the inspection done sometime this week and if all goes well we will close escrow on this beautiful house February 10th. By the way, Jeff did this all on his own! He found a gorgeous home for us and I have not seen it in person. I'm so lucky to have a man that is so good at knowing what I want and need!

Family Pictures- 2011

Guess what?

The Wednesday night before Jeff came out to California he got a call from Milgard's HR person in Temecula. Jeff worked for Milgard for almost 12 years and decided to leave for a better opportunity somewhere else. Little did we know that this was leading us to an even more enticing offer from Milgard a month later. Anyway she had called him asking if he would be willing to come back to Milgard and transfer somewhere else. Since she was in Temecula we assumed it would be to California. He said he would consider it, but it would have to be a pretty amazing offer in order for us to afford to live in California. So we had kind of blown it off because we knew Milgard wouldn't pay him enough. So back to my story, on Wednesday night he gets a call that the job is actually back in Phoenix. That was a completely different story for us! Because we loved living in Arizona and before we came to Texas we really wanted to go back there because you can still enjoy California without having to live there. Plus my dad, his dad, his brother, my brother all live there now. And now even my sister lives there! So we were pretty excited about all of that, but we were waiting to hear the actual numbers. So Thursday morning Jeff calls me super early to tell me that the numbers were awesome, way better than expected and that we are moving to Arizona. I was stunned. I had feelings all that day of pure excitement, and complete sadness. I LOVE it here in Texas. My friends are great, the schools are amazing, I had just gotten offered a permanent sub position at the boys school, things were moving right along in the direction we wanted. We were going to buy a house and make Texas our home for the long haul. But the opportunity to live in Arizona where the property taxes are less than 1% (vs the 4% here in TX), we can actually be next to family again, visit California whenever we want, not have to deal with ice storms, we still have to deal with the heat, but that is just 4 months out of the year and the rest of the year is pretty darn near perfect. We can also afford a house that we can grow into over the next (hopefully) 30 years or so. Anyway, my feelings were all over the place. Up and down and all around. I mean hello, this is our FOURTEENTH  move people! 14 times I have packed up our stuff and moved away. This will be the last time. We are buying a house and sticking to it no matter what. So with mixed feelings we will be saying goodbye to Texas and hello again to Arizona.
We are so blessed by our Heavenly Father. We are always shown in so many ways that he has a plan for us and that it is always better then the one we have for ourselves.
Today Jeff is going to be making an offer on a really nice house, so cross your fingers we get it!

Hello Arizona!


bye bye Texas! We are going to miss you!

Mark's Wedding

These are the only pictures I took at the wedding. Which is such a shame because we got to go on a boat, we saw dolphins jumping (right after they exchanged rings!) the sun was setting. It was gorgeous. But I had 3 little boys who would not sit still on the boat and since Jeff was not there I was freaked out that Zack would fall overboard. I know, I worry too much, but it's better to be worried then not and having something bad happen. Needless to say it was a gorgeous day for a wedding and to be out on the ocean. Well it was cold, but gorgeous all the same. 

Christmas with the Boyes family

Logan demonstrating how to pop a cracker open

all the grandkids

Val loved her present! I'm so happy about that! :) 

I don't know how he managed it, but Jeff is not in any of these pictures. I am going to have to check with Walker and see if he got any of him in it because I can't believe we didn't get him on film!