I’m not quite sure I’ll ever get back onto my several-posts-a-week blogging schedule but instead of stressing about it I am going to just continue to blog when I want to… because it’s my blog — right? Right. I’m too busy doing cool things like this…

Life lately has been pretty great. Work is good, and busy. My husband is pretty cool. Except for his inability to hit the hamper with his dirty clothes. Other than that, he’s cool. Miles is pretty much the cutest… and most rotten… little dude ever. He is finally saying more words which is a lot of fun for us. He is still behind where he should be but we are pleased with his progress over the past few months. We’ve also finally reached the bribery stage which I must say is quite excellent for getting him to do things.

Check out this comparison of last year and this year!

This weekend we had our 3rd annual Fowler-Buckeye Chili Cook Off. We had 6 crocks of excellent chili, lots of friends, beer, a frustrating, intense, yet winning Buckeye game and two attendees walked away with trophies.

Thanks friends and family for stopping by!

Since my mom and her beau stayed overnight Mike and I scored a last minute movie date. It has been a REALLY long time since Mike and I have been to an evening movie on a weekend. So many people. However, the crowd was well worth it… we saw Argo. And I loved it. I’ve been pining to see it since I first caught wind of it and I highly recommend it!

Another fun thing… a marketing intern at work, Loren, has started fashion theme weeks at our office. Thus far we have had stripes week, polka dot week, ROYGB week… this upcoming week is animal print week! So fun. If you want to participate you can post your pics on twitter/instagram with the hashtag #weeklywear.

So today marks my 1 week of going wheat free. I started reading Wheat Belly (and am still reading). I was intrigued right away and so much of what I read seemed to apply to me. Mike has joined me in this and honestly we’ve ate lots of really good food this week! Sure, I miss bread and pasta but thus far I haven’t had one day where I felt unsatisfied. Lots of chicken, full fat cheese, nuts, veggies, fruit and even chocolate. Honestly… I lost 6 lbs in 6 days. Granted I know a lot of that was probably water weight because I feel incredibly less bloated but more importantly than any of that I just feel good. I don’t feel sluggish or blah. Even on the nights I didn’t get much sleep I really felt good the next day.

I’m not saying I’ll never have wheat. I will undoubtedly continue to drink beer occasionally. I will break down and order a pizza at some point. I might even have a burger with a bun. But so far I feel like this could be a really positive choice for me and I’m exploring it. And no, I’m not just dropping bread and pasta and shopping in the gluten free aisle. I’m dropping wheat and replacing it with healthier choices. More to come on this I’m sure. If you are interested in what I am eating my diary is public for my friends on myfitnesspal and my username is asliceofkiwi. If you add me and I don’t know you please leave me a note when requesting!

CONGRATS to all those who ran the Columbus Marathon today! I can’t believe it’s been over a year since I was finishing it. So proud of you all!

So something totally different with moving to my new job is my eating. Before I was working from home with full access to my kitchen. Both good and bad. It was nice to be able to cook anything up but also tough to not snack non-stop some days.

The fantastic, but also dangerous, part of my new workplace is the on-site diner. The diner has a pretty robust made to order menu, daily specials, cold sandwiches, and a soup and salad bar. My first day I indulged in the turkey and avocado special quesadilla and mac and cheese but every day since I’ve enjoyed the soup and salad bar.

Mike and I don’t eat a lot of salad at home because it’s not really Mike’s favorite so I’m totally digging the salad bar.

Most days I grab a mini serving of soup of the day and then build a salad from iceberg and romaine and top it with garbanzo beans, black beans, corn, grilled chicken, carrots, lite Italian and a few croutons. My salads are totaling around 200-250 calories and the soup about 150-200 calories. Perfect!

I’ve also been grabbing some fresh strawberries and grapes at the lunch bar and saving it for my afternoon snack. You see, my awesome new workplace has this fun little office with free candy and snacks. It’s so hard to resist! I’ve indulged a few days but I’m trying to keep it in check!

What candy can you not resist? I’m a sucker for peanut m&ms and chocolate covered pretzels.

… You are NOT 18 anymore. You are 28. You are creepin’ up on 29 in just a few weeks.

You can NOT eat an all beef hotdog and follow it with a run. Well, actually you can. However, you can NOT expect it to be a good run. You can expect searing side pains, a few cramps, some nasty burps that you aren’t sure will only be air and feeling like you are going to poop your pants.

You are no spring chicken. You’ve gotta feed this body extra good to get just a decent run. Don’t be dumb, dummy.

Love, ME

So yeah, basically I went out for a post-dinner run tonight. Half a mile in I was all like yeah, my legs feel gooooood. Let’s go crush 5 miles.

A mile in I was all like yeahhhhhh I’m gonna barf, this is super uncool.

So I told myself I’d get in 3 miles and hope not to puke.

3.44 miles later in 32 minutes I was back in the safety of my own home. A good reminder that I’m getting old. Awesome.

Tomorrow I think I’ll have a day full of water, nuun, fruit and whole grains.

Do yourself a favor and join me in a wedge salad. –Phil Dunphy

I started eating wedge salads a few years ago. I don’t remember my first wedge salad but I do know I cannot stop eating them lately. Why are wedge salads so good?

I like my wedge salads with a creamy Italian or thousand island dressing, diced tomatoes, diced red onion and a little bacon. YUM. I’ve even started making them at home for lunch regularly. I can eat this delish wedge of goodness (sans bacon) for around 90 calories.

No, I don’t eat just a 90 calorie wedge salad for lunch. I like to add a baked potato with some lite sour cream as well. Errrr I think my stomach is growling now.

I do feel as if I’m cheating on my beloved Caesar salad though. I love a good Caesar salad.

What’s your favorite salad dressing?

Remember why/how I started this blog? It was originally called ‘Size 5 for our 5’ and was centered around my journey to get back to being comfortable in my body by our 5 year wedding anniversary. Obviously now I talk about a lot more than my weekly weight loss and lifestyle change but at the heart I think that’s still what my blog is about, and the journey I’m still on to change my life and my body for the better.

So it’s been a while since I’ve shared my progress.

I’ve been tracking every single calorie I’ve taken in and put out since the beginning of the year using My Fitness Pal (add me, I’m asliceofkiwi). I was definitely doing it before that too but my streak since January 1 has been on point. At times it feel monotonous and depressing like oh wow, I just ate 700 calories worth of cookies and am still hungry. Other times it is empowering to have such a great insight into my diet and exercise.

Here’s today’s breakfast!

Obviously I’m a huge fan of sweat and getting down to business running, cycling and whatever else but at least for me the key to my weight loss (and healthy lifestyle) is food. Dang, I sure wish it wasn’t. I wish I could eat anything I wanted and could just burn it all off but that doesn’t work for me. I have to make better choices, measure my portions and pass on dessert sometimes.

My daily goal of food intake is 1,200 calories. On days I burn calories I try to not to eat those calories but on days where I’m burning more than 400 during a workout I definitely do eat approximately half of them. Or some days all. And some days all and then some. I definitely don’t hit my calorie target daily. I still have days where I eat close to 2,000 calories when I splurge on a meal out or pizza.

Another tool I’m using that I love is our Withings wi-fi scale. It’s no secret that Mike and I are tech junkies and after our old school scale died we made the splurge for this fancy scale. You hop on, it weighs you, measures all the other stats and immediately uploads them to your own password protected site and syncs with the app on my phone. Mike and I are daily weighers so we like it, a lot! The more I step on the scale, the more accountable I am. Not everyone works well that way but to each their own.

My long term goal is to lose 22% of my body weight. I’m happy to report that as of today I have lost 14.96%. Another fun but useless fact is that today I weigh 54.5 lbs less than I did on the day before I gave birth to Miles. Wow knees, you must have been really annoyed back then.

So while I’m feeling good lately I definitely still have some progress to make. I have lbs to lose, muscle to gain and confidence to build. Below are some before and after pictures. The before pictures are from the first week of December so the progress reflects about 3 months. They changes aren’t significant but regardless it’s progress!

I don’t have any huge initiatives in front of me. I just want to keep tracking without being miserable not letting myself have things I enjoy. I’d rather make this slow and steady progress and change than yo-yo.

What have you done for yourself this year to make yourself feed good?