Struggling With Weight Loss

I’ve struggled with weight loss for as long as I can remember. Even at 13 while weighing 127 lbs I obsessed about my weight. I don’t think I’ll ever see that number on the scale again, but thankfully I don’t feel like I have to. I’d happily settle for 170 or 180 since I’m fairly tall for a girl and I don’t mind having curves.

Unfortunately for me I’m about 70 lbs away from that goal. I can probably list out a billion and one excuses on how I got to be so overweight, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change what’s happened. No matter how you slice it I still have this monumental battle ahead of me. I’m only 32 and yet I can’t even walk around the mall for too long before feeling tired, and run down.

Over the years I’ve tried tons of different diets, including but not limited to: Adkin’s, Weight Watchers, Smart For Life, South Beach, and Slim Fast. I almost always lose up to 20 lbs in the beginning. But then I slip and end up eating garbage late at night because it’s convenient. Once I’ve given up, those 20 lbs come back and another 10 lbs along with it.

I recently discovered I’m an emotional eater and am currently working on a solution for this. Howver, deep down I know that nothing will help me shed the pounds (and keep them off) better than eating healthy and exercising. But the truth is I haven’t been able to find the energy or motivation to start burning calories.

Although I lost 15 lbs last year I recently weighed myself and discovered I’ve gained back 16.5 lbs… I’m once again the heaviest I’ve ever been.

My Fitness Pal

In an effort to discover which foods have been making feel like crap, I started searching the iphone app store for a food diary app. This is how I found My Fitness Pal, an app that helps you count calories and lose weight. Over 46,000 are currently using the app and it has a 5 star rating.

So what makes this app so great? For starters, it’s free. You don’t have to buy any memberships or special foods. Just search the database for the food you’re eating or add your own (it even has a barcode scanner!) There’s also a My Fitness Pal website so you can track your calories whether at home or on the go. Lastly you can include friends, family and other apps users to be part of your weight loss support group. They can comment whenever you’ve met your calorie count, burned some calories exercising, have reached your weight loss goal and more.

I realize there are plenty of apps that tweet or post to facebook when you’ve lost another pound or ran a few miles etc. But let’s be honest. The average person is going to get annoyed if they’re constantly reading that kind of stuff in your feed. I was reminded of this after reading a post called This Is Why You Suck. It may seem a little harsh but I respect her honesty.

But this is what makes My Fitness Pal so great. It’s not just a bunch of random people reading about what you ate. It’s people who share similar goals. People who are willing to give and receive supportive feedback. If you’re someone looking to lose 20 or more pounds, this kind of support is priceless.

I’ve been using My Fitness Pal for a week now and have lost 4 lbs so far. It’s nothing to write home about, but it’s a start to a new thinner healthier me. I’m also doing things a little differently this time. Instead of listing my goal at 180 lbs (which feels almost impossible) I’ve decided I’m going to break it up into many 5 lb mini goals. That sounds/feels SO much easier to accomplish.

I don’t have too many friends on My Fitness Pal but the few I do have been so helpful. You know who you are. Thanks ladies! :)

My first Uncommon purchase. An iphone 3G case for John on V-day 2 years ago.

Uncommon makes the most well-designed, highest quality customizable products available! Their proprietary 3D TATT® (Thermo-Active Transdermal Technology) process ensures durable, long-lasting, high resolution imagery on every product they imprint. They then package your art with care and ship it quickly and safely to your door. (Ok, so I might have borrowed and tweaked that last part from their site. Could you tell? It doesn’t make me any less excited though.)

...to match my business website...

...to match my personal website...

I made this one for my husband John for THIS Valentine's Day.

I’m so freaking happy with how these turned out I can’t decide which case to put on my phone!

Seriously though, these babies are gorgeous. They don’t chip and are incredibly durable.

Uncommon was also nice enough to throw in some 20% off coupons which I will happily share with you.

Leave a comment and tell me what you’d like to put on your custom case. I’ll pick two random winners on Monday, February 20th, 2012. You’ll each receive an Uncommon 20% off coupon code via email (so be sure to leave your email address!).

But even with Crystal’s amazing empanadas it’s hard not to be sad about missing Thanksgiving with my family in NYC. Just like previous years, I’m certain the entire family will be congregating at my cousin Cary’s house in Long Island. I can’t help but wonder… will Michie be making the mashed potatoes with cream cheese again this year? Will anyone reminisce about the face Eduardo used to make whenever he saw the Turkey? Will my family think of me as the stuffing gets passed around? (I used to eat stuffing by itself all year round, lol) Even though I can’t be there with them I hope they know how much I miss them.

Jeez I’m tearing up here…(insert break to answer a phone call from my Tia Pucha here.) Awww they are thinking of me…

I’ll post pics of some friends, family and food later tonight. What are your plans for today? Please feel free to link to any great Thanksgiving posts, recipes, pictures and or giveaways in the comments below. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Today was the day. I finally bought a gratitude journal. I’d been interested in starting one ever since watching “The Secret” but guess I never got around to it.

I spotted the perfect one while picking up an accordion file at Office Max this afternoon. It was a 70′s golden yellow color with damask print velor (velvet? I can never remember the difference) on the front. It instantly reminded me of my great grandmother Eulalia. I could swear they pulled the cover right off her old Brooklyn apartment walls.

It was a little more than I was looking to pay especially since it had a couple of minor flaws, but it was the last one and reminded me of Abuela Lala, and for that I was thankful.

I’d be lying if I told you I knew exactly what I wanted to write in it. I guess I’ll just start by writing 5 things I’m grateful for each night and we’ll see where it goes from there.

Do you have a gratitude journal? How long have you been keeping one? What are your thoughts on giving daily thanks? Do you feel it’s changed your thought process and your perspective on life? I’d love to hear your experience with it.

Have you ever thought of something so much it starts creeping into your dreams? It happens to me all the time. Last night was no exception. Apparently I’ve been reading so much Young House Love lately that John and Sherry Petersik have become dream worthy. Don’t get me wrong Sherry is incredibly dreamy (John I hope you know how gorgeous your wife is), but the fact that I’m dreaming about blog authors definitely reaches new heights as far as my weird dreams are concerned.

For those of you that have never heard of Young House Love it’s a blog about a young couple and their DIY home remodeling experiences. I was already a regular reader but what really got me hooked was their recent week long blogiversary. In celebration of their 4th year of blogging John and Sherry gave us insight into their process and all the things they’ve learned along the way. I’m incredibly intrigued by those currently running successful (lets define this as ‘making a living’ from) blogs and so I found these posts to be particularly interesting. It also made me feel like I knew John and Sherry a little better (enough, to dream about them apparently, lol).

In my dream (bare with me, some of the details are a bit fuzzy) John and Sherry were hosting a friend’s wedding at their home. It must have been during the Pre pre-planning stages. The wedding theme hadn’t even been established yet though I recall seeing a list with possible choices that included: Skype (no friggen clue), Under the Sea, and New York City. I was asked to pick a theme and design the invitations, table numbers, and other decor. I don’t know if it was a contest, but I clearly remember the sense of excitement and looking forward to “winning”.

It was late in the evening, around 8 o’clock. We must have just finished dinner. Sherry was washing dishes and John was lounging. It was the three of us plus one other person, a friend of theirs. We were drinking wine and having fun lively conversation. All of us were a little tipsy and discussing John’s tattoos. He had two: “Just like her father” which was a self explanatory (yet totally abstract looking) tattoo about Clara, and another which related to a trip to Mexico and had a sombrero in it. Wait, what’s this? John also had a huge chest piece tattoo? Yup! “Honey! Oh my gosh, you do have three!” Sherry said surprised as they had totally forgotten about it. Ironically this tattoo was the biggest and I can’t remember what it was of.

I finished my glass of wine and looked for more in the fridge. No dice. “Hey John, where do you guys keep the wine?” he gave me this look as if to say “In the wine fridge, duh!” I wonder if they actually have a wine fridge. They’d be the first people I’ve met (lol sort of) with one.

My friend, and amazing hairstylist, Leeann showed up shortly afterward. I assume it was to help with the wedding. That’s when I was abruptly woken up by my Siberian husky, Cuba. She was barking to let me know it was time to go out.

I’m not entirely sure what the point of the dream was. I think part of me really wishes I had crafty friends close by to drink wine and DIY with. Maybe I just wish someone would help me remodel my new home, OR maybe Young House Love is just that awesome of a blog! Who knows? If I happen to figure it out I’ll be sure to let you guys know. :)

Needless to stay, after checking out the website I was super excited though still skeptical. I didn’t want to be disappointed again like I was with the Sharpie Liquid Pencil. I turned to youtube for help. Someone must have made a video about the FriXion pen right?

Apparently they have erasable highlighters and pens in all different colors! I immediately marched my ass to Office Max and bought two packs of FriXion pens. One in all black and another that came with Black, Red, and Blue ink. WIN!

I know my friend Scott would probably say this post sounds way too much like an ad, but what the hell? I can’t help it. I’m a geek. These pens make me genuinely excited. I mean, thermo-sensitive ink that reacts to temperature changes which turn the ink clear? Amazing!

Next I’ll be picking up the Pilot B2P pens, the world’s first recycled pen made from plastic bottles! How cool is that?!?!

Oh, one last thing before I go. The website allows you to choose from a variety of specialty downloads that will help you get organized, get creative, and get to your goals. So be sure to check out http://NotJustAPen.com even if you’re not ready to pick up any of the Pilot pens. However, if you do happen to buy the FriXion Pens or highlighters be sure to let me know what you think!

If your reaction was anything like mine then it’s probably safe to assume you’re not too happy with Facebook’s new image light box. My problem isn’t so much with the light box itself, it’s actually the black background that drives me totally nuts! At first I was hitting F5 (refresh) every time I clicked on a picture which bypassed the light box. If you’ve tried that then you already know how quickly it gets old. I searched around for a more permanent method and was so happy I found one.

I decided to go with a picture of my cat to protect the innocent.

If you’re using Firefox then you can install a Greasemonkey script that will permanently disable the light box. Greasemonkey is a Firefox extension that allows you to write scripts that alter the web pages you visit. You can use it to make a web site more readable or more usable. Download the “Facebook Lightbox Killer” script here. But be sure to install Greasemonkey first.

There was  a Chrome solution but apparently the Light box Killer has been removed from Google as per facebook’s request.

If you’re not ready to completely give up on the light box here are a few non-permanent solutions:

• Refresh/Reload the page
• Right Click picture then “Open in New Tab”
• Remove the text ‘&theater’ from the address bar, when the picture is in theater mode, and press enter

[Source: AXLERATION]

Inside The Hogwarts Castle

Since we live in Orlando it made sense for us to get annual passes. Did you know Universal has a flex pay option that lets you pay monthly for your annual pass? I only found out about this just recently and was super excited. I might not have been able to purchase 4 annual passes otherwise.

We had the bright idea to pick up our passes from Universal early. You know, to avoid the line on the day we finally go. We excitedly piled into the car. John stuck the key into the ignition and tu-… wait. The key didn’t turn. But it’s supposed to turn. WTF? This had actually happened to us once before; We wrestled with it for about 15 minutes and eventually got the key to turn. It’s inconvenient of course, but surely we could get the key to turn eventually right? Wrong. An hour went by, two hours went by, John took apart the center console thinking there was something up with our parking switch. Nope that wasn’t it either. Awesome. Three days before our tightly budgeted Harry Potter trip we can’t start the freakin’ car.

The hubby started making phone calls. This happened at around 5pm on a Saturday. No one was open to help us. We were stuck at home for the rest of the weekend. It sucked.

When Monday morning finally came around the boys (it’s what I lovingly call them. They’re not really boys though. They are strong manly men. :insert Tim the Toolman Taylor grunt here:) decided we could save money if they pushed the car to the mechanic (we were super lucky to find one a few blocks from us). Unfortunately the car didn’t get repaired in time so I had to rent a car to take everyone to Harry Potter World.

Part of my son’s birthday present was that he was allowed to bring one friend. The morning of, we rented the car, picked up his friend (we’ll call him Tay) and headed to Universal Studio’s Island of Adventure. We didn’t get there till about noon and had plans to meet up with Crystal and her family.

At this point I could hardly contain the excitement. I was like a little kid in a candy store. Butter beer, butter beer, butter beer was all I could think about. So… grabbing some butter beer was the first thing we did. It tasted like a cream soda with butterscotch topping! Although I wasn’t aware at the time, I later found out what I was drinking was NOT frozen butter beer. I had frozen butter beer on a return visit and it was definitely better!

In Front of The Three Broomsticks

While Crystal, John and I stood around enjoying our butter beers I noticed the wait time on the Dragon Challenge go from 45 minutes down to 15. I encourged Jeff to jump on the opportunity and take AJ and Tay with him. AJ had never been a roller coaster, but after being on the skycoaster I couldn’t imagine it being a problem for him.

He later walked back from the ride with a huge smile on his face and told me they had ridden the blue dragon. From what was explained to me the red dragon is faster with more drops while the blue one is slower with more loops. “The blue one will make you dizzier.” I was told. So John and I rode the red one instead. The wait to get on the ride itself was pretty short, it was the walk to get there that took us 15 minutes.

After the Dragon Challenge I couldn’t wait to go on the next ride. Unfortunately the only thing on AJ’s mind was going into the shops. He wanted to buy everything! I tried to explain that we should wait till before we left to buy things so we weren’t stuck carrying it all day long, but he didn’t want to hear it. It took a while but we eventually convinced him to go on the Forbidden Journey simulation ride.

Ron Weasley's crashed car (on the walk to the Dragon Challenge)

The wait to get on the Forbidden Journey kind of sucked until we finally got into the castle. The inside looked much like you’d expect the Hogwarts castle to look like complete with talking paintings and tons of magical artifacts. Walking through the castle itself makes you completely forget your waiting to go on a ride. They really did a great job with this!

The ride itself was pretty interesting though at times rather confusing. I really thought I was upside at some point, but John keeps assuring me I wasn’t. The seats are pretty snug and walled off which almost an anxiety induced claustrophobic fit. Despite that (lol) it was one of the best simulation rides I’ve ever been on!

The Sorting Hat was talking to us (inside the castle)!

Defense Against The Dark Arts Room

Once the ride was done we were lead out through Filche’s Emporium of Confiscated Goods. AJ and Tay were walking out ahead of us. Just as Tay had walked past the garbage can he put his hand up to his mouth and totally vomited through his fingers all over the outside of the Hogwarts castle! He turned around and with a sad look on his face apologized. Time slowed down. I stared at him for a moment to take it all in. He was covered in vomit from head to toe. There were a million things going through my head.

Oh my god are you ok? Tay you’re covered in puke! I guess we’ll have to go home. Oh no! What about the rental car?!?! You’re covered in puke :gag: (I had to take a step back at this point and sent AJ away. He was gagging as well and the last thing I needed was two vomit covered kids.) Oh my god what are we going to do?!?!

Luckily one of the Universal employees noticed the pool of vomit and totally jumped in to save the day. “Want us to help clean him up?” He said. Like I’m going to say no. “Yes, please!” I told him. John left with Tay and the Universal guy. They were gone for what must have been an hour. Eventually Tay came back with a new shirt, new shorts, and a pair of flip flops! (and a Universal bag filled with his old clothes.) Whoa! From what John explained they had a whole closet filled with clothing for that specific reason. “I guess this happens often?” John asked. “Every. Single. Day.” the guy told him.

Needless to say we didn’t go on anymore rides that day. We finished off the night with some dinner at the (fairly priced) Three Broomsticks and some shopping at Zonko’s, Honeyduke’s and Dervish and Bangs.

Although the Wizarding World of Harry Potter isn’t nearly as big as I was expecting, there’s definitely enough to entertain even the biggest of fans. Just remember if your claustrophobic or suffer from simulation sickness you may want to reconsider the Forbidden Journey!

A while back, shortly after my son was born (but way before I knew anything about Photoshop), I had a serious itch to create some custom Christmas cards. We had just bought my 5 month old some really cute Holiday Pajamas from Old Navy. I even bought him some little reindeer slippers! I was excited to take pictures of him in his new PJs and use the images for my custom holiday cards. Finding an affordable place to print them was difficult at the time. I eventually stumbled upon Shutterfly.com, was impressed with their website and decided to give them a shot. I uploaded 2 different card designs (which I made using Paint Shop Pro) and ordered 25 of each. They turned out great and my family absolutely loved them!

Since then I have received a Bachelor of Science in Digital Arts and Design. I’ve always wanted to give custom Christmas Cards another try since I know I can produce a better design now. I was so satisfied with Shutterfly the first time around I’m pretty sure I’ll be using them for the printing again.

Although I may not have the time to design something from scratch this year, I’m really excited about all the different Holiday templates Shutterfly has to offer. Here are just a few of my favorites:

• Pretty Poinsetta
• Family Wall Red
• Holly Frame

They can even do custom wall calendars (an absolute holiday favorite) and a variety of photo gifts. It’s easy to find the perfect gift at shutterfly.com.

After driving past it a million times we decided to stop in and give Cheddar Jack’s a try. The food was great which means we’ll definitely be coming back. An even happier part of the visit was getting to snap some shots of the indoor vintage signage they had. Aren’t these great?