Meet Bentley

We have a very exciting announcement to make. We have a new family member! And before everyone starts freaking out, no I am not pregnant. We welcomed a new fur baby to our family on Tuesday. Everyone, meet Bentley!

Bentley is a German Shepherd mix and he is about three months old. We adopted him from the Humane Society and we are so excited to welcome him to our family.

We have been looking for a German Shepherd puppy for about a month or so now. We haven't been looking very hard, but figured if something came along then we would go from there. Oddly enough I was on Facebook and saw an ad for the Humane Society here in town and decided to look and see what they had. I had been checking it every so often just to see if they had any German Shepherd puppies, but wasn't expecting to find anything. 

Well low and behold, they had three!!!! They had two males and a female. And although I wanted a female, she didn't look like a German Shepherd so we visited with both of the males that they had and I fell in love with Bentley. He was just so cute and he was a sweetheart. The Husband wasn't too sure that we were ready for another dog but after some convincing we decided to adopt him. 

One of the main reasons we have been wanting another dog is because I have been wanting a dog that I can take hiking and running with me. Although Louie likes to go do those things 1) he can't always keep up and I have to end up putting him in my backpack and 2) he can't really protect me because he is so little. So we wanted a bigger dog that I could take with me when I go out and do the hiking and running on my own. 

So far things are going pretty well with Bentley. He listens very well. And of course we are working on the potty training, but he is very affectionate, which I love. And you can tell by the way that he acts already that he knows that he is my dog, which is good since I am the one that will be taking him places. We were told that German Shepherds are usually loyal to one person more than the other in a home, so we were told that if it was going to be my dog for hiking and stuff like that, that I needed to assert my dominance early on. So far it seems to be working. 

He isn't sure about the leash yet, but we are working on that too. And Louie isn't sure about him being here. He doesn't really want anything to do with him right now, but from everything that I have read, this is normal. Hopefully he comes around and they become great friends. 

Welcome to the family Bentley! We are very excited that you are now ours!

Weigh-In Wednesday

It's Wednesday! Time for this week's Weigh-In Wednesday post. Whoop whoop!

I am full of energy this morning as I have already been to the gym and got my workout in for the day. And it isn't even 9 am yet! Yesss!!!!!! 

Not a whole lot of change going on from last week's post. I am still on the 10 day low carb plan. I believe today is my last day if I counted correctly. Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich here I come tomorrow! Haha! And possibly a Pumpkin Spice Latte if I can fit it into my calories! I definitely didn't struggle with the low carb eating as much this time around. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. And I feel like it really got me back on track. I could feel myself slipping more and more and this has kind of snapped me out of that. 

I have some exciting progress to share! As of this morning I am officially down to 155 lbs! And I have stayed there consistently for a few days. So this low carb thing again, really did help the scale move and now I am only 15 lbs away from my goal weight of 140. It is crazy to me how close I am to reaching that goal. Especially if you consider how much I have already lost, 15 lbs doesn't seem like a lot! And I love that feeling. 

The other exciting progress that I have to share with you guys is that I have officially fallen into the Athlete range as far as my body fat percentage is concerned. Athlete for my age and height is 21%. Last month I was at 22.6%, so I was so close. When we did measurements on Friday I was at 19.9%!!!!!!!! AAGGHHHHH!!! I was so excited. And so proud of myself all at the same time. My trainer couldn't believe how much I dropped in just a month. But you could tell that he was excited too. He kept re-doing the measurements to make sure that he did them correctly. It was funny. 

Tough Mudder is only a week and a half away. And with each day my excitement is growing, but so are my nerves. I keep asking myself if I am doing enough to get ready for it and I feel like the answer is always no. But seeing as I have never done one of these ,I am not really quite sure what to expect. So I have a feeling that I won't feel prepared at all. And hopefully when I get out there, I will feel better about it. I guess we will see next weekend. 

Okay, that is all I have for today. Thanks for stopping by and checking out my progress! Everyone's support has been amazing and I am so glad that I have all of you out there. Thank you again and have a great Hump Day!

Weekend Recap

Once again I suck at blogging and couldn't get my weekend recap up for you guys yesterday. Sorry about that. I started it and then got busy with work. I hate being a grown up some days. Sigh. 

This weekend was insanely busy. But once again in a great way. Friday started with an after work personal training session like it always does. From there I headed home and waited on the Husband to get home because I was challenged to the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge like I am sure most of you have been. So I had to wait for him to get home so that I could do it. It was absolutely freezing. You can check it out below. 

After I was done with that I dried off real quick, got changed and then headed out to dinner with my friends. After dinner I headed home and decided it was time for bed. I was tired. It had been a long day and I was ready for some sleep. 

Saturday I got up early and made my way to the gym. I did yoga and then stayed for Zumba. It was only the second time that I had been to yoga and I am still not sure how I feel about it. I think my problem with it is that I just feel so lost. Haha! I have no clue what I am doing, but I think if I keep going it will get better. 

After getting my workouts in, I ran a few errands, did our grocery shopping for the week and then ran home to get ready to go out. I headed to my friend Megan's house where I met her and her Husband and then we picked up her Mom and stopped and had dinner on our way to the State Fair. We went to the rodeo and then stayed to watch the Chris Young concert afterwards. He was once again amazing. It was a great show and a good night. We had a lot of fun. 

Sunday I was up hella early. I'm talking 5 am. I had to be up in Denver by 8 am for the Reebok Spartan Workout. Which was awesome! It was a great two hour workout and a great way to start my day. We did lots of burpees, mountain climbers, jumping jacks, and no big deal or anything, but we pulled a Jeep, haha! And they happen to put a video up of my group doing the Jeep pull. You can see me for like a split second. I am on the left side and I have on teal shorts and a black top. 

After the workout was done I headed home. I did some cleaning, made dinner and just relaxed for the rest of the day. It was a busy day. Heck, it was a busy weekend, but it was also a lot of fun. 

Hope you guys had a great weekend!

Five on Friday

It's my favorite day of the week, Friday. Hallelujah! Let's dive into some Five on Friday. 

1-This 10 day low carb eating that I am doing is freaking awesome! And I am not being sarcastic. I really needed this to kick start my body again and it is doing an awesome job of it!

2-I have officially been challenged to the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. I will be completing it tonight. And it isn't supposed to be very warm today, so it is going to be even colder. But it is all for a great cause, so I am going to suck it up and do it. 

3-I get to go see Chris Young at the State Fair tomorrow and I am pretty excited about it. I saw him open for Dierks Bentley a few weeks ago and he was amazing, so I can't wait to see him do a full show! 

4-My Zumba class got cancelled yesterday so I went hiking with my trainer at Red Rocks Canyon Open Space and it was probably the best idea ever. He had me climbing up some of the rock ledges because he thought it would be great practice for the walls for Tough Mudder and he wasn't kidding. The walls are what I am the most nervous about and climbing the rock ledges helped me work on my technique for getting over the walls. It was super helpful and I am feeling better about the walls now! 

5-Sunday I am participating in a Reebok Spartan workout in Denver and I'm pretty excited about it. I think it will be a lot of fun and it will also be another great thing to help with Tough Mudder and for next years Spartan races that I plan on doing. Gah! What has happened to me? I am fitness obsessed! But I'm okay with that. 

Hope you guys have a great weekend! 

Weigh-In Wednesday

It's Weigh-In Wednesday time!

Sorry for not posting last week. I just can't seem to find enough hours in the day to stay on top of everything. I think that is probably a good thing though :)

Lets dive right in. This week has been interesting so far. After my session last Friday I spoke with my trainer about my nutrition and how I thought I needed to change it up. The scale hasn't been moving and I have been working my ass off, so I didn't know what to do anymore. So he decided it was time to go low carb again. Usually when we do this we do four days with low carb and then go back to normal. This time however we are doing 10 days of low carb eating. 10 freaking days! I am usually freaking out by day two of four because I want some damn bread. So needless to say I was super nervous about it. 

Honestly though it hasn't been that bad this time around. He also gave me a total amount of protein and fat to shoot for and by trying to pay attention to those and hit those goals, I actually am not consuming that many carbs. And as strange as this may sound, I actually feel like I am getting to eat more food throughout the day. I think it is because food that has more carbs in it, has more calories. So by eating less carbs, I have more calories throughout the day. It's weird, but I am okay with it. 

And so far the results are enough to keep me moving. I started the week out weighing in at 163. Which put me up 6 lbs from my last WIW post. This happens every now and then. I am up and then within a week I am back down. Some of it is water weight and who knows what else, but in just two days I am back down to where I was at 157 lbs. So I am hoping to see some more results over the next eight days. Here is to hoping anyways. 

My workouts have gotten more intense over the past few weeks. We are two and a half weeks out from Tough Mudder and I am trying to do everything that I can to get myself as prepared and ready as possible. I am starting to get nervous. I know that I will finish, but I am more nervous about how much I am going to struggle on some obstacles. But at the same time I keep telling myself that all I can do is try and if I fail then so be it, but at least I tried. 

Thought I would share this with you guys. I still can't believe how big I was almost a year ago. Why did I ever let myself get that way? But seeing a side by side like this makes me really proud. And also very disgusted with how I looked in the picture on the left. Ugh! But guess what, I don't look like that anymore and I am trying to remember to appreciate and celebrate that!

That's all I have for this weeks WIW! Hope you guys are having a fantastic week! Thanks for stopping by!

New Tattoo...Well Kind Of

For the longest time I have talked about getting another tattoo. I have one already and have had it since I was 18 and have always been itching to get another. 

I kept running into a few problems though. My first problem was that I couldn't decide on what I wanted to get. I wanted it to have some meaning. I didn't want it to just be anything. My second problem was having the extra money. There was always something more important that needed to be paid or something else would come up. That's life ya know. But I always took it as a sign that I wasn't supposed to get another one yet. Especially since I couldn't even decide on what I wanted. 

I realized one day that I knew what I wanted my next tattoo to represent. I wanted it to be a representation and a reminder to myself of why I decided to finally get healthy and lose all this weight. I wanted to be able to look at it and go, yep, that is why I did this and that is why I am choosing to still do this. So I decided to attach me getting a new tattoo to hitting a big milestone and goal. I decided that once I hit 50 lbs lost that I could get another tattoo. 

So that day finally came(in the beginning of May). I was really excited. Knowing that I was going to be hitting it soon, I had been searching the internet and pinterest like crazy for some ideas of what to get. Like I said, I wanted it to be something that reminded me of this journey. After looking for a while, I stumbled upon this picture and immediately knew this was the tattoo I was going to get. 

I loved the quote itself. It just seemed perfect for why I was getting it and what I wanted it to remind me of. So I took this picture to a tattoo shop downtown on Mother's Day (see why I said it is kind of new, haha) and sat down with a kick ass Artist, Mike, and told him that this is what I wanted, but that I wanted a different font. I told him where I wanted it (my wrist) and he was a little concerned that it wasn't going to fit, but he went ahead and drew it up anyways and played with the size and because it was meant to be, he was able to fit it perfectly on my wrist. 

I am still incredibly happy with how it turned out. It is simple and every time I look at it, it reminds me of why I got it in the first place and everything I have accomplished. And it makes me happy. And that is all I can ask for. 

The only problem I am having now is that I have the tattoo bug/itch. I want another one, haha! That always seems to happen though! 

Weekend Recap

It's Monday. And I am already ready for this week to be over. Anyone else already in that boat? 

Let's get into my weekend recap. This weekend was busy!!! But fun! And I enjoyed every single second of it. Yeah, it was awesome!

Friday night I had a session with my trainer after work as I always do. He once again kicked my ass. It never fails. I always leave his studio feeling like I am made of jello. But it felt great. I headed home afterwards and we got started on dinner. We had decided on having breakfast for dinner because I needed to carb up for what was going on on Saturday. So I found a whole wheat pancake recipe on the Skinnytaste website and got to work on those. I added some mini chocolate chips and holy crap were these good! These pancakes turned out better than any pancakes I have ever made in my entire life. And the best part was that we froze the leftovers. And I ate the rest of them over the course of the weekend. You can find that recipe here. I also had some oatmeal and some eggs. But I'm sure you really don't care about that. 

After we had dinner made, we spent the rest of our evening on the couch watching The Office. This has easily become one of my new favorite shows. We are flying through the seasons on Netflix right now. We are currently on season four right now and I swear each season just gets better. 

Saturday morning I was up at 5:30 am. I got myself some breakfast, got dressed and then headed out to go run in the mud at the Dirty Dash. Our heat was at 8 am, so I left my house around 7ish and got there around 7:30. I had plenty of time to get myself ready to go. Once I found all of my friends, we headed to the start line and waited for our heat to start. 

We had an absolute blast. And we flew through the course. Our heat ended up starting late by probably about 10 minutes and we were done before 9 am, so less than an hour for sure. I still had trouble with the walls on the course. My upper body was so sore from training the night before that I had an even harder time pulling myself up this time. Thank goodness for having someone who is stronger than you running with you, haha! 

After we were finished I went and found my SIL and her friend who were also running, but starting at a later time. They were all getting ready when I found them, so after a few pictures, I took my Nieces from my SIL and they headed up to the start line. We waited around for a while until we were able to find them at the end of the course. So we watched them finish and then we headed to the starting line with my Nieces so that they could participate in the kids version of the race or as they like to call it, The Piglet Plunge. 

This was fun but also disappointing. It was fun because we got to go through a mile of the course and some of the obstacles again and get some extra mud on us and my Nieces loved it, but I was disappointed because it wasn't very well organized. Not to mention some of the obstacle they were supposed to be able to do were already being put away when we got to them. I luckily had a couple free entries so we didn't have to pay for my Nieces to do it, but most of the people there had to pay $20 a kid. If I were them, I would be pissed. 

After we got done with the Piglet Plunge we headed to the showers to rinse off so that we could get in the car to go home. After we got most of the mud off of us, we headed home and by home I mean my SIL's house. We sat around for a good part of the afternoon and then headed to a friends house for a BBQ. It was a lot of fun. The food was good and the people were fun. 

After the BBQ I headed home and immediately hopped in the shower to get the rest of the mud off of me. After I was done I got dressed in some comfy clothes and then went and grabbed some frozen yogurt from the place by our house and then came home and parked myself on the couch for the rest of the night. I was so tired and sore that I didn't want to do anything else. It was the perfect way to end a great day. 

Sunday morning I was up early again because we had family pictures scheduled for 10 am. So I got up and got some breakfast and then woke up the Husband and we started getting ready. We met the rest of the family for pictures and were finally able to get those done after being rained out twice. I can't wait to see how they turned out. 

After pictures we ran a few errands, grabbed some lunch, and then headed home. We watched the Broncos destroy the 49ers! I know, I know, it is only preseason, but I am very much liking what I am seeing from my team so far. Can't wait for the regular season to start. After the game I did our grocery shopping and then came home. The Husband made dinner and we watched more of The Office to finish off our evening. 

It was a busy weekend, but a great one. And next weekend and this week are just as busy. So if you don't hear much from me, that is why. Hope you all had a great weekend!