Mamavation Moms — Mamavation

Spinning Wheels—Mamavation Week #3

February 15, 2012 By mommycanrun 10 Comments

So, here I am in week three. I am feeling spent. I feel like there are important aspects of my life that are suffering right now because I am being pulled in so many direction—spinning my wheels, but not really going anywhere.

Honestly, I feel tired and run down. I do not feel like there is ever time to recharge my batteries and I am in desperate need of some recharging. It is not that I want to throw in the towel; I need a break and there is none in sight.

I feel like the meal plans are going well. We have definitely had some successful meals. With the help of Mr. Bear, I have kept the cupboards stocked with all the yummy ingredients I need for our meals. We are all enjoying our meals.

This week’s weigh in was discouraging. The scale was down .5 pounds for the entire month. I find myself feeling frustrated by my lack of progress, but seemingly endless effort. I know the stress is playing a major factor in the almost complete stall of weight loss.

I know next week will be a better week. For right now, my baby girl and my bed beckon me. Have a great week!

Here’s my video for the week.

Thank you Alysa at Inspired RD, Pete Cohen The Weight Loss Guru, and the Mamavation sistahood for getting me through the past couple of weeks! Your support means so much!

Filed Under: Featured, Longterm, Mamavation Moms Tagged With: @mommycanrun, alysa bajenaru RD, fitness, Laura Lohr, mamavation, pete cohen, video confessional, weight loss

Mamavation Mom Week 3 – Progress NOT Perfection

February 15, 2012 By MyBaybah 17 Comments

During week 2 everything started to click for me. The exercises are starting to get easier, my meal plan is falling into place and getting easier to follow, and making time for family fitness has become a reality. Hubs, Baybah and I rode our bikes together for the first time as a family. All 3 of us had a blast, especially Baybah. I loved seeing the smile on his face and hearing the “Weeeeee’s!” coming from his bike trailer as we rode down the street. It was so much fun it did not seem like a workout at all!

Then the dreaded week 3 started. I was not on the lookout for it. On Sunday we went to a birthday party and I was not prepared. When I got to the party I was hungry. I tried my best not to eat, but the hunger took over and I ate what was available. I did not go crazy, but I do know that a croissant sandwich and potato salad is not on Alyssa’s meal plan. Feeling guilty and letting the emotions get the best of me I spotted this:

I resisted it for most of the party but just before I left I gave in. Darn it! Why did I let that cupcake win? The host of the party gave us several cupcakes to take home, I should not have taken them. Later that evening I had a second cupcake. I was so nervous to be honest about it on my bookieboo journal for the day. What would my mentors say? What would my friends say? I did not want them to be disappointed in me. But just the opposite happened, there was a stream of support from everyone on twitter. It was just what I needed to help lift my spirits and start the new day fresh and the rest of week 3.

So whenever temptation strikes I am going to think of advice I heard from @MNMspecial today on twitter. She said to imagine that there is a hair in it. I am a visual person, so here it goes!

I am sure that image is going to help some of you stay away from those cravings too. LOL. You are welcome!

Week 3 might have started out with a snag, but I plan on ending it with a bang! Here is my scale picture for the start of week 3. I am down 1.4 pounds for the week and 4.4 pounds since I applied to be a Mamavation Mom!!

Thank you Mamavation Sista’s for all of your support!! Thank you also to Alysa’s from InspiredRD for the yummy food plan and Pete Cohen from Weight Loss Guru for your emotional support program.

See you next week,

Lolo from Crazy About My Baybah

Filed Under: Featured, Longterm, Mamavation Moms Tagged With: alysa bajenaru RD, diet, featured, Journal, mamavation, mamavation mom, mybaybah, pete cohen, vlog, weight loss

Mamavation Mom – Week 3

February 14, 2012 By Andreaemilien 9 Comments

Hey everyone!!

Can you believe we are already in week 3?? Seems like just yesterday we were finding out that we were the lucky three to be Mamavation Moms.

I am sure you know that week 2 was a pretty emotional week for me. I am so glad it is over and I can concentrate on this week and doing what I need to do to be healthy!

This is what I woke up to on Sunday morning:

Yeah – I kinda like that number! J That is -1.8 lbs for the week and a total of -6 lbs since applying to be a Mamavation Mom. Not too shabby, if you ask me.

So my wonderful cousin sent me an email and said my posts were too brief. And since I completely love her, I wanted to talk more about my meal plan.

Alysa is amazing, first of all. She really listens to what I need and I appreciate that. Since I am gluten-free, dairy-free AND egg-free, I am sure my meal plans can be tricky. But she hasn’t complained yet so I take that as a plus. Lol

Here is what my exchanges look like:

Breakfast	1 fruit, 2 starch, 2 fat
Lunch	1 veggie, 1 fruit, 2 starch, 3 lean meat, 2 fat
Snack	1 veggie, 1.5 fat
Dinner	1 veggie, 2 starch, 3 lean meat, 2 fat
Snack	1 fruit, 1 milk OR 2 starch

For me, the hardest part is adding in the starches and fats. For all my adult life, I have been trying to cut that stuff out. So to add it in…..yeah, it is super hard for me. This week my mentors suggested I not count calories. Counting calories is a control issue for me – to give it up means putting my trust into the process. I promised I would try and I am doing my best to follow my meal plan to the T.

I love adding in more veggies though. I am a huge fan of vegetables – more so than fruit. Kale chips is my favorite, right now. I am a huge fan of brussel sprouts and asparagus. I tried roasted cauliflower this past week and it was delicious! I want to try to roast more vegetables and see what else I can find. Oooh, maybe carrots? Hmmmm.

So my goals for this next week are going to be:

To not count calories

That’s it. For anyone else maybe this would be easy. For me, it isn’t. But it is going to be good. I can’t wait to come back and tell you all how successful I was. J

Thank you to Alysa @InspiredRD (whose website is Inspired RD) for your amazing meal plans and for your support. Thank you also to Pete Cohen (@petecohen_ or at his website, WeightLossGuru) for your wonderful program! Thank you to Leah, Shelley, Shannon and Kelly for your support. And thank you to my fellow Mamavation Mom, Laura and LoLo for being my backbone when I needed it. We got this girls!!

Until next week.

Filed Under: Featured, Longterm, Mamavation Moms Tagged With: alysa bajenaru RD, Andrea Emilien, diet, featured, pete cohen, video, vlog, weight loss

Mamavation Mom Week 2—It’s All About the Planning

February 9, 2012 By mommycanrun 10 Comments

The first week of the Mamavation Mom campaign was a bit more stressful than I anticipated. There was a lot of information to process and I found myself feeling a bit overwhelmed. It’s almost the end of the week and I am feeling a bit more secure about what I need to do. Today is the day I am going to get a complete grasp on the meal planning and meal preparation. This week is going to be a great week!

I ran a 10k on Saturday and I am really proud of my progress with activity. I feel stronger with the Mamavation workouts and I feel like am better able to fit everything in. Exercise is going really well!

I have some goals this week!

1. Keep watching my water intake! I am going to make sure I have water in my hand every chance I get.
2. Meal planning—I am going to get my meals planned out for the entire week and follow everything exactly.
3. Leave the scale alone. I have a bad habit of weighing myself everyday. That gets me really frustrated.
4. Don’t sweat the small stuff and know that it is all small stuff!

We got the program from Pete Cohen, Weight Loss Guru. It is the emotional component of the program and I am really excited to dive head long into the information. Also, I am going to bury myself in the information I got from Alysa from InspiredRD. It is all really great stuff! Thank you to my mentors, the Mamavation ladies, and Leah. This week I know will be a great one!

Here is my scale picture. Womp, womp, womp.

It is not a true reflection of things, as I usually gain 6-8 pounds during my period. I am down a total of 6.5 pounds, so I cannot complain!

Here is my week two video.

Filed Under: Featured, Longterm, Mamavation Moms Tagged With: @mommycanrun, alysa bajenaru RD, exercise, fitness, fitness program for moms, health, healthy living, Laura Lohr, mamavation mom, pete cohen, vlog, weight loss

Mamavation Mom Week 2- I am Stronger Than I Think

February 8, 2012 By MyBaybah 26 Comments

I shared this photo that I took on my blog but thought it was important for me to share here as well. It is something that I need to remind myself at times. I AM STRONG! I CAN DO THIS! I WILL DO THIS! Yes it is going to be hard work. Yes it is going to take time. Yes there are going to be ups and downs. But, yes I will and can do this!

I will admit that the first week of being a Mamavation Mom was a little hectic and stressful at times, but by the end of the week I started to get a hang of things. It was about the time that I saw the flyer in the picture above that I realized that yes, I am stronger than I think. All of the hard work and effort that I have put in this week will pay off, and it did. I had several victories, 2 of them being non scale victories.

1. I did not have one sip of Diet Pop (Yes, I say Pop.) For me that is huge because I am a Diet Pop addict.

2. I avoided temptation at an art/music/food festival. There was fried twinkies, french fries, funnel cake everywhere but I did not feel the need to even have even one bite. And the best thing of all, I did not feel deprived.

3. I lost 2.6 lbs! I know we should not base our success on what the scale says, but boy did it feel good to see it go down instead of up. It is a step in the right direction, and I am very proud of what I accomplished this past week.

This week we are starting Alysa’s food plan from InspiredRD and Pete Cohen’s emotional support program from Weight Loss Guru. I am really excited to learn what to eat and how to break my emotional cycle with food. Those are two things that I need help with for sure. I would like to thank them both for all of their help and advice they have give us so far!

My vlog for this week is a recap of week 1, my challenge for this week, and thank yous! I seriously can’t believe that I talked as long as I did.

See you next week!

Lolo from CrazyAboutMyBaybah.com

Filed Under: Featured, Longterm, Mamavation Moms Tagged With: alysa bajenaru RD, diet, featured, Journal, mamavation, mamavation mom, mybaybah, pete cohen, vlog, weight loss

Mamavation Mom – Week 2

February 7, 2012 By Andreaemilien 24 Comments

Hi all!!

Well, it’s the start of week 2 and I get to connect with all of you with another fantastic blog!

Week 1 was hectic and a little stressful at the beginning. Towards the end of the week, everything smoothed out and I kind of settled into a schedule with my workouts and getting my meals done and everything.

I am QUITE happy to report this:

Yes – that is my weigh in. -2.6 lbs this week! Since applying for Mamavation Mom, I’ve lost 4.2lbs. I worked really hard this week and I think 4.2 lbs is an amazing number. You know what they say: -1 or 2 lbs for healthy weight loss. So I am right there.

I am also down 14 inches! 14 inches!!!!

Oh and I won the battle against the burpees. I no longer hate or despise them. I might in fact love them. Well – love is taking it a bit far but I do like them. They get my heart rate going and I feel the burn – all good things!

All in all, it was a decent week.

OH! I got Alysa’s meal plan this Saturday. I am really excited to start that. Tonight I had a really yummy dinner of baked cod and rice with roasted asparagus. Super tasty!! AND we got our logins for Pete Cohen’s program and I am super thrilled to be able to start that. I’ve only heard good things about it.

My vlog this week is about something that has been upsetting me for a couple of days and I had to get up at 4am and address it.

Thank you so much to Alysa at InspiredRD and Pete Cohen at Weight Loss Guru for all of the advice and help you have given us!!

Until next time!

Filed Under: Featured, Longterm, Mamavation Moms Tagged With: alysa bajenaru RD, Andrea Emilien, diet, featured, mamavation mom, pete cohen, video blog, vlog, weight loss

Swept Up in the Whirlwind and Loving It!

February 1, 2012 By mommycanrun 18 Comments

Wow! The past 48 hours seem like they slipped away so quickly. At the same time, it feels like days, not hours that the Mamavation Moms were announced. The past month went by so quickly between the campaign and the two week challenge. I have been so inspired by past Mamavation Moms and all the ladies in the Mamavation Sistahood. I am in shock that I made it to the finals—eventually I become a Mamavation Mom myself.

Before I get too far into this post, I want to say thank you to everyone that voted, that supported me, that showed me love, and those that may have thought this was a crazy idea but gave me their support anyway! I feel so blessed and loved. I promise to make you all proud and soak in every opportunity this affords me.

This is all so surreal and it is happening to me! Someone pinch me. I cannot believe it!

This week was busy, busy, busy! I managed to get all the workouts in I needed to, but the scale refused to budge yet again. That is okay though. It seems like every other week is my thing and I am completely okay with it, because inches are steadily disappearing from my waist, hips, thighs, arms, legs, and everywhere in between.

I am in the midst of marathon training. On top of the Mamavation workouts, I run 5 days a week, including one track workout where we do a different workout every week. Some weeks we do tempo runs. Some weeks we do relays. Other weeks, we do 400 meter repeats. On Saturdays, we do a long run. Every week the time on our feet increases by 20 minutes. The combination of the two workouts is exhilarating!

I do struggle getting it all done, however I am a lover-of-lists. I have been breaking everything down and getting it done, one step at a time. Somehow, it gets done! Sometimes, it gets done late. The important thing is that it does get done!

Here is the part I cringe to talk about. DUN! DUN! DUN! My stats and BEFORE pictures are below. This is my story today and I know I have to embrace it. It is my job to make this story different and more of the story I can be proud of. Until then, here is where I am starting:

You may not know me yet. In time, you will find that I am a dork and below I do not mind showing it.

Without further ado, here is my first Vlog—ever, I believe. I am not comfortable on camera yet and I am pretty sure it shows. Everything in good time.

Have a great week!

Filed Under: Featured, Longterm, Mamavation Moms Tagged With: alysa bajenaru RD, diet, featured, Laura Lohr, mamavation mom, video confessional, vlog, weight loss

Mamavation Mom – Week 1: Here We Go!

February 1, 2012 By Andreaemilien 34 Comments

I wrote my first Mamavation post Monday night, after the announcement was made. I wanted to make sure that I got all of the feelings and emotions that I was feeling at the time. My vlog really shows you just how out of sorts and stunned I was. Anyway – here it is……

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oh my.

I wanted to write this post before things settled down and before I lost the excitement of tonight!

First, for those that don’t know me……my name is Andrea. I am a wife of 13 1/2 years and a mother to 2 funny, smart, crazy kids.

I’ve been overweight for a very long time and a binge/emotional eater for almost as long as I can remember. I joined Mamavation in 2011 as I was going through a dark time in my life. I joke that Mamavation saved my life. Talking with some of the women on Mamavation changed my perspective and how I looked at me. It actually did save my life and I will forever be thankful.
I’ve wanted to be a part of the Mamavation Mom campaign since I joined. I am not a confrontational person nor do I compete with everything and everyone in my path….but I do love a challenge. I love being able to conquer something that I didn’t think I could do. My weight is one challenge I have yet to conquer.

And now I get to do it!

I am super excited to work with everyone and go through this journey. I am really excited for everyone to get to know me and follow my story. I really, really hope that I inspire someone who has a similar story to mine to take back control and start their own new chapter!

Thank you to everyone who took the time to vote for me. I received an endless amount of love and best wishes. Thank you for making this possible for me!!

My stats were taken on Monday. I am looking forward to seeing these numbers go down!!

Starting weight: 261.4
Waist	43
Hips	48
Bust	43
Arm – rt	15
Arm – lf	15
Thigh – rt	25
Thigh – lf	26

And my scale picture. NOTE: It was taken tonight (Tuesday). I am also noting that I will need a pedicure very soon. lol

Week 1 scale picture
AND………my before pictures:

Before pic 1
Before pic 2
Ugh! I can’t wait to see how much I change.

Until next week!

Filed Under: Featured, Longterm, Mamavation Moms Tagged With: Andrea Emilien, diet, featured, mamavation mom, video, vlog, weight loss

New and Improved Me Here I Come!

February 1, 2012 By MyBaybah 29 Comments

Me and Baybah

Today is day 1 of my Mamavation Mom journey. I am exhausted, but could not be happier to be here. Thank you to all of my friends and family that gave me the support and helped make this possible. I promise to make you all proud. I also want to make my son proud and be a fit and healthy mom so I can be the best mom that I can be!

The first day of our journey was filled with lots of information and an outpouring of support! Today we got our exercise plan that we will be doing for the first three weeks of the campaign. After that they will be switching things up for us to keep things fresh and our bodies guessing. Since everything is so new, we do not have our nutrition plans yet, but I am excited to hear what Alyssa from inspiredrd.com has planned for me! I see a lot of wonderful healthy food in my future.

Here are my before photos. I look forward to sharing with you a thinner and healthier me at the end of my seven week journey!

I also have my first vlog for the campaign to share with you. Can you say tired?!

I would also like to thank Leah for this amazing opportunity and my Mamavation Mentors Shelley and Andrea who have already been such a big help!

See you next week!

Lolo

CrazyAboutMyBaybah.com

Filed Under: Featured, Longterm, Mamavation Moms Tagged With: alysa bajenaru RD, diet, featured, mamavation, mom, mybaybah, weight loss

Vote for Mamavation Mom–Campaign #11

January 22, 2012 By Mamavation 125 Comments

It has been exceptionally hard to choose Finalists for Mamavation this round because they were all so dedicated and have really shown what they are made of during the hazing and #2weekchallenge. I based my decisions on the following factors: (1) How they interacted with the community, (2) their hazing and #2weekchallenge participation, (3) recommendations on twitter & on this site, (4) Interviews, (5) their videos, and (6) their overall demeanor, i.e. do I think they will say “Thank you Bookieboo, can I have another?” FYI, this ain’t no Club Med…this is a BOOT CAMP.

For those of you who were not selected, I expect you to stick around to reapply next campaign in April. Sticking around really shows me your dedication and how this community means a lot to you. Don’t give up on us! We can still be your friends and support group!

So what happens now? VOTING…all week long. The voting officially ends 1/30 at 9pm EST and I announce just before 10pm EST during the Mamavation Twitter Launch Party.

Rules: You can only vote once, but you can vote for as many as you want within that vote. I allow all types of garnering votes, so please don’t whine about how people are getting votes. Yes, they can go on TV, radio, church, friends and all sorts of places to get support from others. In my opinion, the more people they involve in this lifestyle change the better. It makes them less likely to walk away from it all. That is my evil plan. Mwahahahahaha.

After voting, make sure to RSVP to the Mamavation Twitter Party here. That is where your Finalist will be that night and you can support her the entire time by virtually holding her hand. (She will be nervous.)

Next you can send out this tweet to invite other people to join us for the fun,

Celebrate the 11th #Mamavation Boot Camp launch w/ @Bookieboo 1/30 from 8-10pm EST, http://bit.ly/wtZgJW

Good luck to all the Finalists! Take a deep breath….and go get some votes!

Filed Under: Featured, Leah's Posts, Longterm, Mamavation Moms, Uncategorized