Going strong...mostly

I made some delicious totally vegan healthy soup the other day. It had vegetable broth and mushroom broth, potatoes, carrots, onion, garlic, cabbage, lentils, salt & pepper, italian seasoning. Just throw all of the chopped up veggies and everything else in a big pot and simmer it. I also made homemade egg-less whole wheat rolls. Mmmm. It was delicious! We have also been making salads pretty much every day. We make a bed of greens, put on top of it some black beans, corn, onions, carrots, celery, salsa, crunched up tortilla chips, small amount of cheese, and small amount of Marie Callendar's Chipotle ranch dressing or Litehouse Jalapeno ranch dressing. It is a delicious southwestern salad that fills you up completely. Eat that at around 4 or 5 pm with a tall glass of water and you will be full all night.

We did have a bad day yesterday. We got Little Caesars on the way home from swim lessons. It was ridiculous. I felt bad, but I also felt like I was going crazy not allowing myself any junky food. I know it has only been a week and a half, but it feels like forever. I decided to only order one large pizza so we would not overeat. I ordered it over the phone and made the mistake of sending Jake inside to pick it up. He walked out with 2 large pizzas and a crazy bread. Yes, it was a better deal because the one pizza was $7 plus tax and they had a deal for 2 large and free crazy bread for $10. I guess my point for not doing the better deal was that we wouldn't be tempted to eat a bunch of it and have to have leftovers in the fridge. Oh well. What's one day, right? I did an extra long and harder workout today and only ate healthy, so I think I made up for it.

I have had a struggle with my sweet tooth, however I have found a healthy option for when I get a hankering. Silk Pure Almond Dark Chocolate Milk. It's delicious and it is totally dairy free. However, it is not delicious right after eating a handful of M&M's. ; ) It's good stuff and helps me not binge on unhealthy chocolatey goodness.

I do this all because, I'm Worth IT!! I'm good enough, smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!

Healthy Lifestyle Info and Guidance

Hey everyone, I'm loving the posts and the goal setting.
Remember that the effort you put in now will improve your health, your appearance and decrease medical complications later in life.

You're worth it!

I have a lot of things to say and a lot of interesting studies to share with you but I will spread those out during the next 9 months. What I wanted to start with were some resources for you during the year.

There are a lot of nutrition and health myths out there and a simple internet search isn't always going to give you reliable information.
There is good stuff out there however. I recommend www.livestrong.com



Through my experience this site is probably the best for providing accurate, reliable and easy to understand information. Other sites are either unreliable, biased, lack scientific citations, are trying to make money or are hard to understand.

At livestrong, simply type some key words in the search bar, then on the left hand side of the search results click "Articles". There are many articles about one topic written by more than one author. Choose one that looks like a good place to start.

This next step is important
After reading an article, look on the right hand side and click a related article. Read at least 3 or 4 articles about a given topic to get the whole picture. Different health specialists with different backgrounds write the articles and it is important to get a whole picture of the topic.


Another source of help is me!
While I am not an expert in nutrition or exercise I do know some things off hand but I also have access to textbooks and online databases (through BYU) that have valid, up-to-date information on most anything nutrition related.

So if you want to learn more about food or exercise feel free to ask me anything and I will either answer it, look it up or point you in the right direction. I am here for you!


Good luck everyone and stick with it. This is an important goal to reach.

End of Week 1

Ok! It has been a not so successful week, but good thing it's only the first! I broke my no fast food today when I took Connor to Arctic Circle with my friend Brittany, because I feel bad going to play on the slide and not getting any food, so I shared some french fries with Connor.

We are eating the meat we have left, but I'm making larger healthy sides to go with them, and we are focusing on vegetables. Except Nora, she seems to be focused on throwing them off her plate. So, I did a "before" picture. Ryan told me not

to smile, and I'm unhappy with how I look so that was easy. Heh. He says I should share it, so here goes everything. This is what 200.2lbs looks like on a 5'3" woman. So, I am hoping this motivates me to take a better picture! Connor wanted his picture taken too, and his goal is to GAIN weight. I thought it might be fun to see how much he grows this year. Maybe he'll catch up to Edyn! I'll do Ryan's "before" picture this week.

I hope everyone is doing great on their goals, I like doing this with everyone, it makes it a little easier to try harder. We are the best family.

Healthy Breakfast after unhealthy 2 days

We've had a couple not-as-good days food wise, I'm trying to think back for the past couple days. I know yesterday started out ok - whole wheat vegan pancakes, which turned out ok but Jake says I should get becky's recipe. Here is the link to the: http://www.holycowvegan.net/2008/01/whole-wheat-eggless-and-dairyless.html they were a little gummy in the middle, I think it will help if I use pastry flour... and fresh pastry flour at that. We'll see, Ryan was not a fan. The kids loved them though, Nora ate 2!

That was the extent of our healthy eating yesterday. I was sitting down and my foot fell asleep but Nora wanted something to eat so I decided to pick her up and go into the kitchen. I don't know exactly what happened because my foot was asleep, but I misstepped and my ankle rolled and I heard a lovely "pop" and was down on the ground. My foot swelled up immediately in two spots, and Ryan rushed me to the doctor to make sure I didn't break anything. Turns out just a really bad sprain and I'm supposed to stay off of it as much as possible for 3 days and then ease back into exercise depending on how bad it hurts. Sooo, that sucks. Ryan got me a super-fatty cupcake, which was delicious but not diet friendly. We then got Jimmy Johns, which was super yummy, but they put a lot of mayonnaise on their sandwiches. I got the tuna with sprouts, cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce and no cheese. No whole wheat. But delicious :) Then we picked our kids up from our friends who had ordered pizza and invited us to stay, so we ate that for dinner. I ate 2 slices of the combo so I could have at least a few veggies. The GOOD things I have to say about my eating habits yesterday was that we ate dinner early in the day, and I didn't have anything else after that except 2 glasses of water. I also went to bed early (9pm) even though I tossed and turned all night.

Now on to this morning, I am excited to say we had another healthy breakfast. I made 6 fresh farm fresh eggs, I had 1, the kids each had 1-2, and Ryan had about 2. I didn't make toast like I usually did but made a filling smoothie! I put in 1 cup frozen mango, 1 cup frozen peaches, 1/2 cup frozen strawberries (frozen from the farmers market earlier this year) 4 tablespoons of ground flaxseed, and 100% white grape juice for the liquid. Not the best for sugar content on the last. I ground that up and gave the kids each a cup and then remembered I should put some spinach in, so I put 2 cups of spinach in the remainder left in the blender. So I split that between Ryan and I and I thought it was pretty good! And no yogurt or milk! So hopefully we can make healthy choices the rest of the day from what I can find around the house.

Day 2 of the rest of my life

So today we fulfilled our first goal of signing up for the Y and we did pretty much an entire day of Vegan meals and snacks. Surprisingly we felt good and had energy to make it through the whole day without the need for a nap. Jake made some really good hummus that we now call "artichummus" or "hummuchoke" because he put artichokes in it too. Here is the recipe:

1 can garbanzo beans

1/2 can artichoke hearts

1 Tbls tahini (find it near the whole foods peanut butter isle, oh...and just an FYI- tahini is no replacement for peanut butter. Jake learned the hard way! Haha!)

1 tsp red pepper

3 Tbls of garlic powder or 3 fresh cloves

1/8 cup (or more) of black beans

2 oz. diced roasted jalapenos

Blend all of it together until creamy

We also went grocery shopping and spent $110 on totally whole foods. I was surprised at myself when I looked at the cart and didn't have anything unhealthy in it. That is a first for me. I usually have at least one unhealthy thing. I heard that a good rule of thumb is to stick to the outside isles of the grocery store. That is where you will find the healthier foods, not so processed. I also bought some dark chocolate almond milk and I was pleasantly surprised with the taste. I'm pretty sure I just might be able to replace chocolate milk. I plan to make oatmeal for breakfast tomorrow. We will see if the kids will eat it!

Ryan's Embarassing Weigh In

I laugh at all your starting weights. I could eat all your starting weights for breakfast... But I won't because I'm going on a diet. I am currently bending our new scale at 320.2 lbs. My goal is to do slightly less damage to our scale at 240 lbs. I certainly won't be stopping there, but it's gonna be my first milestone (or millstone). DEAL WITH IT.

Week 1

Okay...I'll do it. Wait...my husband is trying to make out with me. No, seriously. I'm ready and motivated...to lose weight, that is. Started the day off bad by eating Dad's brownies with marshmallow and fudge frosting that he made last night for our New Year's eve. And, ended the day badly with eating an ice cream cone. I'm not off to a good start, but I'm realizing that this will probably be harder for me than I thought. Sugar has always been the party in my mouth that I never wanted to end, but has not been my friend on my thighs or butt. Okay Sugar...you are going DOWN!! Jake made a great dinner of salad, rice, carrots and oranges. I think I might be eating a lot of salad for a while! This week's goal is to start an exercise program. We are heading to the YMCA first thing tomorrow morning, we have appointments set for a physical on Jan. 12, and we have been looking through a book (Forks Over Knives) for recipes. As we try different recipes we will post the good ones. Everyone else do the same too! I'm going to go grocery shopping tomorrow and stock up our fridge with fresh fruits and veggies. Mmmm! Let's get started!

Day 1

Well I guess I couldn't have picked a better day to start losing weight. I only have one pair of church pants that still fit me...and I popped the hook thing off today at church. I now officially have no church pants that I fit into without losing weight. This means I have a busy week ahead of me. We did pretty good with our eating today. had a salad and some rice for dinner with a big pile of carrots, whole wheat toast for breakfast, and a little bit of dessert. We are almost junk food free in our home and don't plan on bringing any more in. My starting weight is 221 lbs. my goal is 180 lbs. Good luck everybody, and be strong. We can do this!!!

Matt and Julia's first weigh in

Well here we are after the break. We really started packing on the pounds over the last couple weeks, despite our best efforts to eat less this vacation. I even swam three times the first week, and played frisbee, basketball, and Just Dance 3 on the wii the second week! Oh well, that's ok, we can work it off!!

According to our Wii Fit:

Matt Merrill, 01/01/12: 187.8
Goal weight: 170

Julia Merrill 01/01/12: 143.7
Goal weight: 125

Here goes nothing!

Aly's Weigh In

Ok! I stood on our brand new Biggest Loser scale at 7:25PM on 1/1/2012. My official starting weight for the New Year is:

200.2 lbs

Can't wait to win!!!!