Update (because I know you care)

So here we are...  Day 2.  Yesterday was awesome.  I felt great.  I made yummy meals and I didn't even kind of want sugar.  My brain told my body "no," and and my body listened.  Today?  Today has been less great.  I've been exhausted all dang day.  I've had sooo much water, fresh fruits and veggies,  and proteins.

I'm getting a headache.

And I'm getting irritable.  

Seriously.

Sigh.  My brain is still saying no, as badly as I could go for a diet coke and a cookie right now, it will continue to say no.  I hear the first week is the worst, then after that your body doesn't want junk.  I wish I could just sleep through this week.

Or not talk to / be around anyone.

Yes, that would be quite nice.

My No Sugar Challenge

That's right, I said no sugar.  Am I crazy?  probably, but for reasons other than my no sugar challenge.

Let me clarify what I mean by no sugar.

I'm cutting out all processed, artificial, and added sugars.  Yes, added sugars... which are in just about EVERYTHING.

I'm not expecting to be 100% perfect at cutting out added sugars right away, seeing as I'm starting this challenge 2 days after I move into our house; but over time, I'd like to be better about cooking almost everything we eat.

We will be using 100% pure maple syrup, honey, agave, and stevia to sweeten things.

Why am I going so extreme you ask? 

Well, for starters, I want to see if I can.  I'm a total sugar addict.  I have been my whole life.  I've really really struggled to have a healthy body image and a healthy relationship with food for as long as I can remember.  I finally feel like I'm getting to the point where I have a healthy body image, I truly love my body, and I really want to take care of my body.  Bodies are pretty awesome and when you give them the right stuff, they can do almost anything. 

 Second, I've tried this whole "moderation" thing...  Let's just be honest, I suck at it.  I make excuses to eat what I want.  I'll eat just a little bit of this, then a few hours later I'll eat just a little bit of that, next thing I know, I've consumed far more junk than can be considered a "healthy" amount, and it's only fueled my desire for more.  I'm not cutting sugar out forever, I'm going to go a month without processed and added sugars, then we'll re-evaluate.  Maybe someday I'll get to the point where I truly can eat just a little bit of sugar and feel satisfied.

Third, I feel like crap.  Before my back surgery I had gotten down some really good eating habits.  Since then, I feel like it's been one thing after another.  My food depended on what other people served to me for a while, then Maggee died and I didn't care what I ate, then we went on vacation, then bought a house, etc.,  I found reasons to push nutrition to the side and focus on other things... and boy have I been feeling it lately.

Fourth, I want to establish good, healthy habits for my future family.  One day I'll be responsible for little people.  I'll be responsible for how they learn to treat their bodies.  I want them to love themselves.  I don't want them to struggle with learning to be healthy.  In order to do that, I need to establish good, healthy habits of my own.  After all, kids learn by example.

Fifth, I don't want to be chubby anymore.  I want to make sure I don't end up with back problems for the rest of my life.  I don't want to end up with heart problems or diabetes.  I want to fit into my smaller clothes and I want to not worry about the angle at which my picture is being taken.

I'm a little nervous going into this challenge that I'm not going to be able to go without any sugar.  I was telling Steve that I'm nervous I'm going to fail.  That got me thinking.  Can I really consider it a "fail" if I almost completely cut out sugars, but one day I'm weak and I have a cookie?  No!  After all, my goal is to establish healthy habits.  I'm human.  Perfection is not realistic.  I'm going to have days where being healthy is harder than others, but I'm going to do my absolute best.  I just want to break my bad habits.  I want to truly become a healthier person.  I'm done relying on caffeine and sugar to get me through my days.

I'm going to succeed this time because I truly want to.  I really don't want to eat junk anymore.  I may cave here and there, but in the grand scheme of things, I'm not going to fail.  I'm going to establish healthy habits and prepare myself to raise a happy and healthy family.

If anyone wants to do this with me, please do!  The more the merrier! 

For a good resource on how to cut out sugar, click here.  

You should also read "A Year of No Sugar."  I'm not going as extreme as the family in that book did, but I found it very informational.

For wholesome and easy recipes, follow @eating_whole and @marcicooks on Instagram; you won't be sorry.

If you yourself have helpful tips or yummy recipes, help a sister out and leave them in the comments below!

P.S.  I'll be starting this challenge on May 5th, but really, you can join in anytime.

Frustrated

*Foreword: this is an emotional, frustrated ranting post. I try to keep my posts positive, but I'm not making promises for this one. You've been warned*

Can I just be real for a minute?

My body frustrates me, a lot.  I often feel discouraged.

For the last year or so, I've been so focused on trying to eat healthy, and since my back surgery, I've been focused on trying to eat healthy and get adequate amounts of exercise.  My weeknights have revolved around preparing creative healthy meals and working out.  It's practically consumed almost all my free time and energy.  Dare I say it?  It's more exhausting than school was with an injured back.

I track all my food, yes, I still have an occasional treat because let's be real, no one can go completely without treats.  I've tried really hard to make the treats healthier.  I've worked with a lady at work (she's our Health Promotions coordinator) she's been weighing me weekly and taking measurements.  She's so kind and patient with me.  I've been working with her for 2 months now...  and I've lost a total of about 2 pounds.  Is it this hard for other people?  I don't feel like it should be this hard.  Am I missing something?

I know I could be more diligent, there's ALWAYS room for improvement, but seriously, I've been doing pilates, yoga, swimming, spinning, and walking.  My feet hurt nearly every day from spending so much time in the kitchen making healthy meals.

My body seems to love fat, it just doesn't want to let it go, it never has  Granted, I've had really unhealthy habits in the past that have most definitely messed with my metabolism.  But should it be this impossible to get your metabolism to work properly?

Sigh,  I'm just tired, and I've gained 2 pounds in the last week.  It's hard to stay excited and motivated when you don't see the results you want.  I just need to revisit the drawing board, change up my game plan.

Don't worry, I'll never throw my goals out the window and stop working towards them, I still want to take care of my body. I know I'll get there with consistent hard work.

 I'm just tired, and frustrated, and discouraged, and I needed to ramble and vent.

So thanks for listening to my big fat complaining post.

Now to end with a little bit of positive, my flexibility is coming back to me.  And that makes me happy.

This Crazy Thing Called Life

Today in my Gospel Doctrine class we talked about how our lives are not a straight paved road leading from point A to point B, but instead, our lives are like rivers.  There's lots of twists and turns.  I've never wanted to go "Southern Black Gospel" on my ward so badly.  It was all I could do to not shout out a "Hallelujah!"

Because our life is twisting and turning right now.

Let me back up.  Our plan has ALWAYS been to have Steve graduate with an English degree, then go to Law school.  We've been working toward that for the last 2.5 years...  

Until suddenly we're not anymore.

Law school was getting close.  and we were getting uneasy.

You're probably saying to yourself, "well duh, Katie, Law school is big, of course you were getting uneasy."

and to you I say, you're right.

So I've ignored that uneasy feeling for a while.  But the more things moved forward, I started feeling depressed, and I couldn't figure out why.  I could tell something was off with Steve.

I just kind of felt like our life was spinning and I couldn't quite get a grip on it.

So finally (I don't know why we waited so long) Steve and I had a sit down chit chat.

Long story short, we talked about Law school, we decided we needed to revisit our plan and pray about it.

So that's what we did, and we both felt strongly that Law school is not for us.

So we said, "well... what's our next step, if it's not law school?"

We started looking around at houses, we prayed about whether or not buying a house would be something good for us, we realized our lease is up at the beginning of April and right now is kind of the perfect time to look.  So we looked and looked, we looked for a full 3-4 days until we stumbled upon a house that had EVERYTHING we wanted, for the price we wanted it at.

We prayed again and thought a lot about it...

Do things normally happen this fast and this easily?  Everyone always says the process of house hunting/buying is stressful... we hadn't run into any real stress yet.

We decided to go take a look at the house in person... and we fell in love.  

After looking at it, we walked in our door, and suddenly, our perfect little home didn't feel quite so much like a home.

So we put an offer in, the sellers countered it, and we accepted...  Assuming nothing crazy happens, we'll be homeowners in the next 30 days!

Eek!  Oh, by the way, all this happened within the span of 2 weeks.  I know... it's insane, right?

But I'm so excited for this next chapter of our lives.

2014 has been all over the place so far.

Birthday Festivities

well, it's true... I'm no longer feelin' 22.

My 23rd birthday was AWESOME!  Best birthday yet.

I'm hopeful that it's a foreshadow how my 23rd year will be.

I started the day out with a delicious donut from Banburry Cross
went to work, left a few hours early with Steve, went shopping, ate some delicious sushi....
and went to Nickelcade!  I know I know,  I'm like a 10 year old.
But ya know what, life is more fun when you let go and have fun like a little kid.

A few days before my birthday my parents took Stephen and I to a Thai place downtown.  It was absolutely delicious.  We will definitely be going again.

We did 2 different family birthday gatherings for me (I know, spoiled).
The first one was with my family, we went bowling, then to my brother's for cake and ice cream.  My soon-to-be sister in law made me a beautiful cake.  In the middle of singing the happy birthday song, my niece and nephew ran up and blew my candles out.  It was pretty hilarious.
The second one was with Steve's.  Steve's family came to our house and we had a taco night.  Because tacos are just delicious.

Also, people were ridiculously thoughtful this birthday.  I feel like EVERYONE remembered.  and it was really sweet.  I wasn't really looking forward to my birthday, I feel like the older you get, the less fun they are.  But then my birthday came and my coworkers and neighbors and family and husband all made it super awesome.  Thanks, everyone.

Now, enjoy a slew of pictures.  I'm feelin' too lazy right now to combine them into little collages.

Life as of Late

We've had a fun couple of weeks lately.  We got to go see Brian Regan, which was soooo awesome.  We were the first raised row on the ground floor and only 4 rows from the stage (that was probably confusing).  Our seats were perfect though.  the non-raised seats had to look up the whole show, however, for our row, he was right at our eye level and we were smack in the middle. :)

(sorry about the terrible lighting, I obviously had no control over that)

Man he's awesome.  I'm so glad we got to see him.

I also did something drastic.

Why did I do this you ask?

I just needed a change... and my hair grows so quickly anyway that I figured if I didn't like my short hair, my long hair would be back in a couple months.

But I do like my short hair.  A lot.  I do miss my pretty melt though.

One of my friends from my Vegas days (Victoria) lived and Provo and used to do my hair before she moved to New York... I've let very few people touch it since then, even for just a trim.  I'm not quite ready to let anyone color it...  I guess I just have trust issues.

And I'm still hurt that Vic left me alone to fend for myself... (I'm needy, plus it's hard to find someone who just gets your head.)

Buuuuut..... there's a light at the end of my tunnel.  A cute girl in my ward has gained my trust when it comes to her scissors, which is why I decided to take the plunge and chop off all my hair.  And I was not let down.  She did a really cute a-line long bob... It's hard to see the a-line from these pictures, but it's cute.

Also, life lately has been trying to get my body good and healthy.  I've been working with a lady at my work.  She weighs me once a week and takes my measurements.  That, combined with the fact that my back is feeling pretty dang good, has been incredibly motivating.  Stephen and I got passes to the rec center by our house and we've started swimming several times a week.  I also discovered that my gym offers an aquatic zumba class.  Yes, it is as awesome as it sounds.  I've also started going to cycling classes.  The first time I went I made the mistake of wearing normal work out pants... an hour and half later I was ready to cry.  Without getting too graphic on you, I'll sum up my experience with saying this: padded pants=an absolute necessity. 

I love working out.  My struggle is eating clean.  Seriously, why do all my favorite foods have to be so void of nutrition/fattening.  This little meme sums up my feelings perfectly.

Sigh...  in a perfect world...

Since I'm out of school this semester, I've tried to take advantage of my free time and play around with food.  I've made some pretty tasty things and tried some fun new foods.  This week I will be trying homemade sweet potato chips with an avocado dipping sauce.  I'll let you know how it turns out.  Also, I'm make spaghetti squash tomorrow for the first time.  Hopefully it turns out yummy.

Here's one of my favorite breakfasts... I find that I'm starving in the mornings, especially if I've had a good work out the night before, this breakfast has a good mix of carbs/proteins.

ps. that egg mixture is half of the following: 1 whole egg + 2 egg whites mixed with chopped veggies.  Delicious (the other half makes a sandwich for Steve)

We've been doing pretty well at eating clean... well... we were doing pretty well until Friday... That's when our girl scout cookie order showed up.  Curse those delicious little cookies.  I think next year I'll be crazy and not order any (assuming I've mastered self-control in the face of junk food by then).

Also,  tonight my cute parents took Stephen and I out to dinner to a Thai restaurant in Salt Lake.  It was super delicious.  I think I found a new go-to place for us.  I wish we had gotten more pictures, but we were all too busy stuffing our faces full of deliciousness.

My cute momma and I.

Well folks.... those are the happs with us lately.  Have a good rest of the weekend!  

Viva Las Vegas

Feb 14th - 17th was a three day weekend.

We decided kind of spur of the moment to go down to Vegas.  We had received a letter in the mail from the Wynn that gave us an awesome discount on a suite, free show tickets, and a free buffet meal.

We decided we really needed to go do something fun.  This year has been a bit of a downer for us so far and I was finally feeling well enough for a long car ride.  So we hit the road.

The first night we got there was Friday, it also happened to be Valentine's Day.  Stephen and I aren't really huge Valentine's Day celebrators but we decided we wanted to have a nice dinner.  We called the all the restaurants in the hotel, but of course they were all booked.  We walked the strip a bit and every restaurant we came upon was booked.  We had passed a "Hot Dog on a Stick" earlier and we were joking about how that could be our back up Valentine's dinner if we couldn't find any other place.  Part of me kind of wishes we would have eaten there because it would have been funny, but the other part of me is happy we found a restaurant.  We ran across an Outback Steakhouse which was hidden away in the strip.  It was delicious.

Saturday we decided to be tourists (even though I lived in Vegas for several years) and walked the strip.  We decided then and there that we aren't very good Vegas visitors.  We don't gamble, we don't drink, we don't really shop or spend unnecessary money... we're just kind of there... taking up room.  But... Vegas is AWESOME for people watching, drunk, slutty people galore.  Also, we saw lots of fun street performers.

Saturday night we went to La Reve at our hotel.  It was amazing.  I was thrilled that they let us take pictures.  The lighting situation was difficult, but I did what I could.

Sunday we checked out of our hotel, met up with my best friend in Vegas (Amy and her husband Montana), ate some yummy food, hung out in her apartment watching TV and painting our nails (Stephen and Montana excluded), spent the night, woke up Monday morning, played with some puppies, ate some breakfast and hit the open road.  It was a quick trip, but much needed for us.  It was nice to go down there and enjoy Vegas as tourists, we never get to do that (Sorry family and friends we didn't visit).

Now enjoy a slew of pictures.

Wait, quick side story:  (You probably don't care about this, but I thought it was funny and I wanted to write it down, so, deal with it.)  There were LOTS of super fancy shops in our hotel.  We passed one several times a day with a modest fancy dress in the window.  The first time we passed it I got really excited and told Steve that he should find me a fancy occasion to which I could wear the dress.  Without even skipping a beat he said, "the hunger games."

I couldn't get a picture of the pink lady without someone posing by her... hence the tourists.

This was my dad's last project as a construction manager in Vegas.

 May the odds be ever in your favor.

  

 The show even impressed hard to please Stephen ;)

  

   

 This one was my favorite.