God bless us each and every one!!!

With Christmas just two days away I like to look back over the year and see the things I'm thankful for and see the things I could have done better at. This year has been a year of mostly ups. I have been so blessed this year its almost not fair. lol First of all I have such a wonderful husband and two wonderful sons that have been trying their best to help me out and be supportive (even Mason who hates smoothies but will drink one to show he loves me). Second I have so many loving and supportive friends and Dr's (that I work for) who tell me every day how proud they are of me and are so happy for me when I accomplish a goal. I was accepted on the Covenant health biggest winner/marathon team and I can't even start to tell you how much it has already improved my life. I have so much more self esteem and for the first time in a long time I don't hate myself when I look into the mirror. I see so much potential in myself and I haven't been that way in years. The team has also given me lots of new friends and you know you can never have too many friends especially ones who are working for the same goal as you are. Ok enough of the mushy girl talk lol. I'm sure you all are wondering what I did with myself this week. First I have to let you know that we have been slammed at work so this week has been a slow one for me as far as exercise goes. I've done mostly 30-40 min on the recumbent bike and about 45 min of weight training at the gym. One of the funnest and greatest exercise I have found is my husband had bought me a x-box kinect with a game called your shape fitness evolved. It is so much fun and it makes sure you do the exercises correctly. I'm also thinking about getting the biggest looser game it looks fun also. when I did get a little time away from work this week I also got some of my other stuff done. I went back to see the dietitian Barbra. I have to say I love to go see her. I know she will call me on what I do wrong and she helps me so much to see how I can do it differently. She does get on me about not eating enough carbs. I think me whole life I have been taught carbs are bad so it is very hard for me to get out of that way of thinking but I'm honestly trying very hard. She did tell me that she was so proud of me because I make healthy food choices though. This time when I went to visit her she taught me how to read labels. I have to say I didn't have a clue. This is what you look for: 1. serving size 2. total fat need 5g or less a day. 3. sodium needs to be 300mg or less for a serving and no more than 2400 a day. 4. Total Carbs 12-19 gr = 1 carb serving, 24-38 = 2 carb servings. need 2carb serving for breakfast and lunch and 3-4 carb serving for dinner and 2 carb serving for a snack a day. 5. protein ...7gr = 1oz of meat. Also if the fiber in your food is 5gr or greater you can subtract this number from the total carbs and most importantly for me a meal must be over 200 calories anything less than that is just a snack. I hope I didn't confuse you with all the info I just found it very informative. It was another light bulb moment for myself. I also did my runners evaluation this week and found out the main reason my hips hurt when I run is because my hips are very weak especially in my right leg which is my bad leg. I was given a blue band and a set of exercises I'm to do three times a week to try to strengthen my hips up. It was kind of crazy to do the runners evaluation because it reminded me so much of my times in P.T. after my wreck and some of the exercises I'm having to do are the same ones I had to do to get back walking. Oh forgot to tell you when I got on the special scale they have at the weight loss center it showed that I'm still at 6lbs weight loss, but I have converted 13lbs from fat to muscle. woohooo go me!!! Well I'm going to go wrap some Christmas presents and spend time with my boys. I hope each and every one of you have a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! Try not to eat too much and when your with your family (even though they might drive you crazy) look around a take the time to realize how wonderful your life is. I'm not saying life is perfect or at times very hard I'm just saying that family is special and having a chance to be close to them tell them you love them and heck having them there to get under your skin is a huge blessing that I think sometimes we forget.