I feel so good, I am so proud of myself, I am getting healthier in so many ways, and nobody can stop me!
Love and congratulations! And a lot of strep.
April 21, 2012
With love and congratulations, we would like to let Ali (and her sister) and Jo Lewis know that they will each be receiving an Ignite System to help them with their weight, energy, mood…and overall health. We love you and believe in you guys!
Will you both email me at contact.mckmama (at) gmail.com with your addresses? Thanks! And any of you who would like to know more about the Ignite System or any of the Xyngular products (and actually, a brand spanking new product was unveiled by the developer today at the Xyng Conference…I’m so excited about it!!) can feel free to email me there, too!
Those of you gals who have already ordered anything make sure you let me know if you are not in my MckMama Xyngular Facebook group. You need to be there! It’s chock full of hour by hour support, encouragement, accountability and help. Oh, and lots of fun as the gals who are already in it can attest to. Right, gals? There are almost 100 girls in the group already, and they are feeling better and dropping weight right and left.
I fell off the wagon myself and so I restarted an Ignite 8 Day Challenge yesterday. Fun times. I need all the energy I can get because all five of my children have strep throat. Yes, again. We found out yesterday that Flurry’s 48 hour culture came back positive even though his 20 minute and 24 hour ones were negative. It’s miserable. Absolutely terrible. They are all on an antibiotic now, we are pretty sure we’ve figured out what caused this, and they’ll hopefully be on the road to health again soon!!
Have a super Saturday, y’all. I can only hope yours is better than ours!
A huge loss and a huge giveaway!!!
April 18, 2012
Why am I so (ridiculously) happy!? Well, I’ll tell you why.
I’m happy because I have worked very hard, have not given up, and have lost 50 pounds!!!
The photo on the left was taken a number of months ago when I weighed about 238 pounds. The photo on the right was taken this afternoon (as I was wearing the same shirt, of course!) as I weighed about 188 pounds.
At my heaviest, I avoided having my picture taken and rarely showed myself to you. Now I’m still an overweight girl. But I’m much less overweight than I was. These first 50 pounds brought me from really big to big. My next 50? They are going to bring me from big to lean. I cannot wait!!!!
As I carve away at my fat, I feel I am carving away at a lot of my other baggage. I’m finding the real me. And I don’t mean the skinny me. The real me is content, disciplined, proud, happy and healthy. I’m getting there. And it feels wonderful!
I want to thank you guys so much for your support and encouragement to me on this journey I began back in December. It has meant so, so much to me! As a small token of my love for you guys, I purchased an Ignite System and had it shipped to my house. It’s sitting here, waiting to be used by one of you!
As I, ahem, know you know by now, I’ve been taking some Xyngular vitamins and supplements to help me with my weight loss (and energy level and mood). This Ignite System is a pack of products designed to help ignite your metabolism and get you losing weight. With them, you can do an 8 Day Challenge during which most people lose 6-10 pounds or more. I am in the middle of an 8 Day Challenge with the Ignite products myself. When you are done with that, you can maintain your weight loss or keep losing (If you, ahem, have more than just 6-10 pounds to lose like I do!) with a 1 to 2 month supply of Flush, Xyng and Accelerate that all come with the pack (which also includes Lean Shakes, Superfruit Global Blend and Cheat).
This whole box of goodies will go to one of you who comments on this post letting me know why you’d like to win it!!
And get this: The winner will not be chosen by me!!! I will pick five of you from the comments, post those five comments to my blog (along with a link to your blog or Facebook page if you decide to leave one!) and let you all vote on which of those gals you would like me to send this Ignite System to!
Sound life fun? Then let’s go! This post will be open for comments from now until midnight tomorrow (Thursday, April 19), Central time.
(P.S. Anyone with any questions about the Ignite System or any of the Xyngular products, wants to know how to order or wonders where to start can certainly email me directly at contact.mckmama (at) gmail.com and I’ll help you out!)
(and possibly more!)
April 10, 2012
(and possibly more!)
about the health supplements I’ve been taking,
a sample of exactly how I eat each day, when (and why) I take each capsule
and where we were today when I photographed my Xyng is in this post.
Just click on the photo to see it all!
the post in which I tell you how much I weigh
March 30, 2012
So now I tell you.
At the end of last year, I weighed 238 pounds. By far my heaviest.
Then.
Then I vowed to carve away my fat and find myself again. Not just my thinner self. But my true self. My disciplined, willing to drive cross-country with my children alone, content, ready to tackle the challenges of life as an at-the-moment solo parent, emotionally healthy, proud, driven, leaner self.
I’m finding her. And she’s beautiful.
And you know I’m not just talking about how I look on the outside, a little bit of how you can see in this photograph I snapped of myself today in the car mirror at Kentucky Lake. I’m beautiful now because I feel beautiful. From the inside out. Even without my wedding rings. I feel energetic and powerful and like I can take on the world.
Which is precisely what I’m attempting to do.
Part of me is taking this trip around the South with my children just to prove that I can do it. And darnit, I was sick of being fat. So I set out to lose weight partly just to prove that I could do it.
And I’m doing it.
Today, I broke 200 pounds.
For the first time in literally years, I didn’t see a 2 appear as the first number on the scale. We’re in Nashville now, staying with my friend Shelley and her family. They have not one but two scales. As we’ve been traveling, I’ve been taking my Accelerate and Xyng, drinking my water, enjoying my fat and protein breakfasts and, well, not hitting the gym because I won’t be able to do that while we travel. And I’ve felt a little leaner. So I weighed myself tonight. And my weight is no longer in the 200s.
Of course, of course, it’s not about the number. I feel better. People are (finally) starting to notice. I managed to get on my size 14 pants today, wheres back in December I literally could not even squeeze into a size 18 pair. I have more energy, a leveled mood. Indeed, it’s not just about the number. I’d kind of lost track, to be honest, of how much I’d lost. But now I know. I started at 238. I am under 200 pounds now. I have lost 39 pounds.
And counting.
Eat fat. Lose weight. No, really.
March 20, 2012
My scale smiled at me this morning, showing almost two more pounds down. I actually skipped an entire number on the scale. I never saw it. Hope to never see it again, either!!
It feels so good to have my weight coming off again. A friend of mine who lives locally and is also losing weight but is two sizes smaller than me keeps passing me down her fat pants as they become my skinny pants. I love it. Soon they’ll each become my own fat pants. Well, hers. But you know what I mean! I’ve been drinking tons of water and definitely not eating a low fat diet. A recent discovery of mine has been coconut oil. And I am in love.
Coconut oil is fattier, but healthier, than one of its cooking oil counterparts, olive oil. It is solid at room temperature which is why it looks white here. I use a little scoop to cook with. Here is a chicken breast in the pan with coconut oil.
You can see the coconut oil melts and is clear when it gets warm. There is definitely a coconutty flavor to it, but once I cook my food in it, I no longer taste it much on whatever I’m eating, like chicken and veggies. Which is too bad, really. Because I love the flavor of coconut. Even though as a child I despised it.
So people are constantly stopping me on the street and asking me exactly what I eat throughout the day, how the natural supplements I’m taking are helping me shed fat and in general how it is that I’m getting so stinking svelte.
Okay, no one stops me on the street and asks me that. And I’m not svelte. I’m just less fat. But I’m getting there. So bear with me.
But honestly, some of you have asked. And since I, ahem, love to talk, I thought it would be fun to have a live chat about it! So mark your calendars (or remember, if you can, but I’m way too old to be able to do that any longer) for tomorrow night at 8:00 pm Central. Right here I’ll be live chatting about all things health and weight loss, at least as far as they concern what I’ve personally been doing. If you want, you can go there now and leave questions for me so I can answer them when the chat starts tomorrow.
Oh and another oil I am in love with is grapeseed oil. You can cook with it, too, but I also like it as a cold oil in my (lettuce or pasta) salads. We still use plenty of regular old butter, too. It’s better for you than your doctor tells you it is. Promise! And as I try to get away from carbs (except at lunchtime, that is when I eat mine), I’m avoiding more and more refined sugars, too. My MSC’s favorite sweetener is agave.
I drizzle the all natural nectar onto their oatmeal, pancakes and waffles. You can actually use it in place of sugar in your baking, too. I don’t bake, so that’s a moot point for me. I’m paring back my body fat by eating a high protein and veggie diet. You can spot a few of my snacks in my cupboard, too: Wasa crackers, peanut butter and reused glass jars full of nuts. Eating fat. Losing weight. Fun times!
Eating healthy makes me look and feel good. And I’m overdue for both of those things in my life right now. Now if you’ll pardon me, I have some beef jerky and almonds calling my name. See you tomorrow night!
“So what are those supplements you keep talking about, MckMama?” and more
February 22, 2012
Today when Big Mac got home from school he told me one of his classes has an African name! Yes, today he had “Fiya.” He just couldn’t believe that gym time had the same name as the Amharic greeting he’s known since my first trip to Ethiopia. When I told him the class was actually called “Phy Ed,” he said he did wonder why they used an African word for gym time. My same little Lego lover was making “abstracted” Lego representations of household objects the other day. Seriously. Where does he come up with this stuff!? Check out the small, abstracted version he made of me and MckDaddy’s wedding photo!
I thought it was neat. Neat also is that Nuggey got to go home with a friend after school today instead of coming home! He was on cloud nine about it.
I’m back in the swing of things with my eating right and taking the awesome supplements I’ve been mentioning that I’ve fallen in love with. The scale was my friend this morning, telling me that I’ve lost two pounds. After I lose four more, I will be back where I left off before I fell off the wagon with health things when my husband left. I know it’s not about just the weight, it’s about being healthier. I feel so much better when I eat right and work out and get enough sleep and take vitamins. I have a friend who ran in my Christian homeschooling mama circle back in the Frozen Tundra. We originally connected about homeschooling and our other interests in common a couple of years ago. She ended up sharing with me how she used to suffer terrible migraines but found freedom from them after starting some health supplements. Carrie also let me know that her dad had lost 50 pounds using the same products. When I plateaued with my weight loss a while back at about 20 or 25 pounds, I finally decided to give these supplements a try for the first time. I lost 6 pounds the first week and had more energy after the first day.
So many of you have been asking what these energy giving, metabolism boosting, health benefitting supplements I’ve been taking to help me lose weight and keep my energy going throughout the day. To be honest, I did not want to share until I had taken them for a while and knew if they worked for me or not. Also, I am so particular about health and nutrition (or, at least, I try to be!), I sure didn’t want to take or share about anything until I had researched it, and its ingredients, as much as I could. Well, I came to a fully convinced place that these supplements are totally working for me and worth it. Also, I stand behind the natural ingredients in the products I take, supporting the safety in using them as a boost to my other healthy choices. Yes, I’ve arrived at a super excited place about sharing about them with you!
So, check out www.MckHealthy.com to see these supplements I’ve been raving about.
It’s a lot to take in, but some of those products are what I’ve been using. It’s way too much to get into totally in this post today, but if you are interested in learning more about the supplements, hearing which ones I use, having me help walk you through which products might be a good fit for you, learning how you can get the supplements more inexpensively (the retail price is what you’ll find listed but there are ways you can get them for wholesale!) or even maybe joining me and my now migraine free friend Carrie for an informational web call about these great energy boosting, metabolism pumping supplements, just email me at contact.mckmama (at) gmail.com and we can talk about it!!
I think we may end up making it through winter without having any real…winter! Has it been the oddest season ever for you where you live, too? The youngest three had well child visits at the (new) pediatrician yesterday, and it took all morning. All three of them are in the 75th-90th percentiles for height and weight. They all come from the same group, that’s for sure! I’m continuing to enjoy my time with Flurry during the days all the big kids are at school. I wasn’t able to attend it, but there was a lovely memorial for my grandma yesterday. My parents said it was beautiful. She was a beautiful person, so I am glad her memorial service was the same.
Time to make dinner, adios for now!
in which I admit to gaining some weight back
February 17, 2012
I know the number isn’t supposed to motivate me. My very ample muffin top shouldn’t propel me, either. I know I’m supposed to only focus on being healthy and on doing the best I can.
But I’m not going to lie. The number on the scale, the way my clothes fit, how big my tummy is…these are all motivators, too.
So I have a new goal. By the end of February, I would like to lose those 6 pounds. I know I can do it. I know I should do it. And? I know I will do it.
In case you didn’t already know, February is National Heart Health month. Whether your goal be to lose 6 pounds, eat less saturated fat or walk just five minutes more a day, we can all strive towards something.
Oh, and we can all strive towards a $750 cash prize, too! How?
1.Share the challenge with your friends
2.Tell us that you’ve invited your friends to join the challenge AND share the extra step you’ll take to stay fit below.
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Quaker Oats Company. The opinions and text are all mine. Official Sweepstakes Rules.
Getting back in the saddle.
February 16, 2012
At the beginning of December, I started to eat better and began to exercise regularly for the first time in years. Everything was going great. Swimmingly. I lost around 30 pounds.
And then.
I injured my knees, sidelining me for a bit. My husband and I separated. Our Many Small Children and I moved to a new house. Life has been very literally turned upside down for me.
And so.
I needed help getting back on track again with my eating and exercising. And I think I found it. I joined the Quaker Heart Healthy Challenge and am committing to exercise 15 times in the next 30 days.
All four of the big kids are at school again today. Getting out of the house and finding our rhythm in the morning has been slowly coming together. He and I went to the gym and worked out already. Well, he played. I exercised. One down, just 14 more to go!
Getting back in the saddle with where I was a month ago is vital for me. More than ever now, with the whole I’m a solo parent for the time being thing, I need to feed my body well and keep it healthy and energized. The Quaker Heart Health Challenge is a tool I’m going to use to track my workouts this month and keep getting my body healthy. Oh and also I could win $750. Bonus.
Want to join in, get healthy, keep track of your workouts and try to win the $750 prize yourself?
Here is what you need to do:
1.Share the Challenge with your friends
2.Tell us that you’ve invited your friends to join the Challenge and share what motivates you to stay healthy below.
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Quaker Oats Company. The opinions and text are all mine. Official Sweepstakes Rules.
these crazy shoes
January 23, 2012
were with me this
morning as I
lost my 31st pound
and these crazy shoes…
(click the photo to see and read more!)
