2 Years 4 Kids 50 Pounds ago Parents In Shape for Life

Today starts week 3 of the YWCA meltdown 2013. I have many things going on that could help me pack on weight but I am going to do all I can to stay healthy.  I recently started a new job as a personal banker and I found out that we are having our fourth child.  Little did I know when I started this blog with 2 kids that the number would double in 2 years. We broke our traditional mold of waiting 5 years between children. Not that we were ever expecting to have a fourth. Really the only one of our kids that we planned to have was our second.  We will see how the weight changes with number four. I will have to watch what I eat because I know there will be a couple of months where long periods of exercise won't be an option.

I want to thank all of you for following along with me. This blogging journey started when I was over 320 pounds and I knew I needed to do something to last as long as I could for my kids. Over the years it has changed into me talking and sharing tips on how to keep weight off, eat healthy and generally stay in shape as a parent.

I hope the next two years will be as successful as the last two.  When I look at all the changes I made to my life and diet I think sugar has been one of the most important.

I started by quitting pre-workout supplements, moved on to eliminate high fructose corn syrup from our diet and finally  to keep sugar out of my diet and out of my home. I find that I not only crave things less but that I have much more energy that is more even through the day. I don't watch my carbs or take in as much protein as I once did. But I find that I can more easy keep my weight even and drop unwanted pounds when I really put my mind to it. I think quitting sugar is going to be the main war that the world is going to have to fight against in the battle of health. 



I am still doing Gladiator every week, playing dodgeball on Fridays and swimming when I can. I have been adding in more weight exercise and adding some pounds on my bench. I think when summer hits I am going to try adding P90X to my bike workouts and I am going to train harder for the 5 mile trail run in Grand Marais so I can do it faster. What are your goals for this year as far as exercise and weight loss? I like to set specific goals so I know what I have to look forward to. Please ask if there are any questions I can help with. 

Thanks for being party of the journey, keep up the good work!

-Gabe

Rainy Day in Mn Twins Game Tonight

This is the second time writing this, the first time I hit a button on my computer and it all went away =).

It’s a rainy day in MN the kind of day you don’t really want to do much. I am going to get a good work out in today. I have been a little torn between doing heavy weight workouts and keeping it to cardio. I know you need cardio to lose weight but you also need muscle and you build muscle the fastest with heavy weight bearing workouts. You also burn more calories for  each pound of muscle you have. I know when it gets warmer out I will be on the bike a lot and that will help the cardio. I plan on getting on my bike almost every day this summer. 

So today for breakfast I had two organic eggs and to pieces of Ezekiel bread toast  dry (no butter) and 2 cups of coffee. sometimes I wonder if my coffee is making me fat. I had a professor once tell me that the acid in coffee promotes belly fat and that I should drink green tea with lemon. I know I stopped drinking coffee for a couple of months and I did lose weight. But I don’t know if it was from the not drinking coffee or that I used to drink mocha’s a couple of times a week. I have since started drinking coffee again but I drink it black at home with just a little organic skim milk. If I get coffee at a shop I often get a depth charge and have some half and half and honey in it. I said before that I gave up sugar, I did but its hard and I do have a candy  from time to time. We keep honey and organic maple syrup at our house that we use sparingly but we don’t use sugar in anything other than baking and even then not much.

My big thing is trying to figure out what to cut out that will really make me lose weight or how I need to change my workouts to really make change.