Balloon Slayer and FFT

It's that time of the week, ladies and gents! FFT that is, or Fat (Free) Tuesday as I've begun to call it. I've decided to just start abbreviating it because otherwise I'll have a million posts all titled the same thing and that will definitely get boring.

So, the weigh-in for the week.




Loss: 2.4 lbs
Total loss: 62.4 lbs

As I posted previously, I had kind of a tough week as far as temptation. It might have possibly been because of a certain time of the month happening up in here...Chocolate cravings and menstrual cycles are best friends. There were seriously days I had to pretend there was a padlock on the freezer to keep myself from downing a whole bag of chocolate chips. I won't lie and say I didn't have any. I'm a former fat girl, remember? But I didn't shove my face and regret it later. I call that a victory for the week. Coming off of a 5 lb loss last week I am really happy with the 2.4 lbs lost this week. 7.4 lbs in 2 weeks is awesome. Let's keep it up!



On Saturday I took J to a friend's birthday party. It was kind of touch and go as to whether J would be able to go because of the sickies going on in our house. J had pinkeye and then an ear infection. But she kept insisting she wanted to go so I took her. She had a great time and came home with a pretty green balloon for her trouble. Since then the balloon has been hanging around the house.

If you know me at all you might know that I'm a bit of a pansy when it comes to scary/haunted/horror things. I don't do them. I believe it's because I have a very active imagination and it's hard for me to convince myself that those things aren't real. No scary movies, shows, books, what have you. My biggest fear is that someone will break into my house and immediately come to kill me in my bed. The Husband is an awesome boogie-man checker. I frequently ask him to get up and search our house to make sure no one is in it and many times I can't fall asleep without a night light.

So last night The Husband and I got to bed late (-r than normal for us) around 1 o'clock. He quickly fell asleep while I browsed Pinterest until I was tired enough to sleep. I put my phone down and rolled over onto my side and just a few seconds later, a dark shape comes drifting up the side of the bed from the floor and hits me in the face. No joke I flipped and judo chopped that sucker! What the freak?! A BALLOON!?! There were definitely expletives going off in my head. I had to take a minute and collect myself from the near death experience and got up and took the stupid balloon back into the living room.

I then had to start over. Pinterest, instagram, facebook...something to put me to sleep! Again, I put my phone down and rolled over (the other way so that the same thing wouldn't happen again.) Just as I'm drifting off again I catch a small movement out of the corner of my eye...that balloon was hovering above me and The Husband! As if to say "I'm baaaaacccckkk."

I swear to you, I thought that balloon was haunted. I thought Don't touch it, it's a ghost balloon. You'll probably end up with a curse on you or something. I woke up The Husband and said "I really need you to not make fun of me right now." He sleepily said "ok?" and I told him the freaking balloon wouldn't leave me alone. He told me to lock in the closet but I wanted to pop it. I quickly ran terrified walked the balloon into the kitchen and cut it with scissors, let the air out and threw it away. The foe was vanquished. I then ran terrified (from the man that was obviously lurking in my living room) back to bed. It took me another hour to go to sleep.

The Husband is now calling me The Balloon Slayer. I'm such a pansy, I know.

Inner Cookie Monster

I am the first person to come out and say that I love desserts. Honestly, if you say you don't you're lying to yourself. For some reason though I think my dessert/sweet craving can also include fast food. So basically I like things that aren't good for me.

The other night we'd gotten home later than normal and the girls didn't get to bed until almost 10. Then we realized that we needed to return a library book or we'd get a fee. The Husband had already showered and gotten into pajamas so it was up to me to put my shoes back on and drive the book to the book drop at the library. I wasn't too happy about having to leave. I was tired and wanted to just sit down for a while and read a book. But I think it's dumb to pay for a library book so I went.

As soon as I walked out the door I was immediately thinking about what junk food I could go get. A donut at Macey's? An ice cream cone from McDonald's? A candy bar at a gas station? It honestly took all the will power I had not to stop somewhere and get something bad for me, but tasty, to eat. 1. It was too late to be eating. 2. I had already finished the calories I was allowed to eat for the day. 3. I don't need junk food, I'm trying to lose weight! I kept repeating these reasons over and over in my head trying to battle with the other part of me that just wanted to give in and stress eat. But I didn't.

I've come to the conclusion that I stress eat. That night we had taken J to the Kid's Care to get medication for Pinkeye. We'd had colds for weeks and it all escalated. And the same thing happened as soon as I knew we were leaving the house to go to the Doctor, I wanted to stop and get fast food for dinner. Chocolate is an obviously stress food for me but fast food is too.

I have days that I don't struggle with making the right choices at all. Then there are other days...like MOST of this WEEK that I am fighting every single minute of the day not to shove cookies down my throat or chow down on an entire bag of chocolate chips.


I'm not sure how to combat all of those impulses I have. It's unrealistic to say I'll never have fast food again. But why is it that I want it every time I leave the house for a longer period of time?

It honestly was so hard and this week has been hard every day because of those cravings. But just like cookie monster, I'm trading in those cookies for veggies. See what I did there? :) Not gonna lie to you though, it sucks.

Fat (free) Tuesday Again!

This week went by really fast for me. That's probably a really good thing because sometimes when you're counting calories it can seem like the days just drag on and your stomach is an endless pit that wants you to consume ridiculous amounts of calories but you can't...and it sucks. But that didn't happen to me this week which I'm very grateful for.

So like I said I went back to strictly counting calories this week. I use a website/app called Sparkpeople.com to track all my food. It's a great site that is free and allows you to either follow a meal plan they set out for you or just enter in your own foods. The trick is you actually have to track the food you eat! What!? Yeah, if you're counting calories you actually have to count them, I know. Weird. With SparkPeople you enter in your weight and you can enter exercise for calories burned as well. Then you can view a little chart that tells you the difference in your calories burned versus consumed. And that's how you lose weight, folks. I also really love that the site gives you a range of calories to eat per day, not a set number. So for me I get between 1400-1700 calories a day. Then if I need those extra 300 one day when I am just endlessly hungry, I have them. But other days I don't need them and I'm still in the range of where I should be. It's great.

So, how did my calorie counting go this week? Oh well...


Loss: 5 lbs
Total loss: 60 lbs

BAM! That's right! I lost 5 Lbs this week!!!!! I couldn't believe it. That is the most I have EVER lost in a single week, even when I first started and my body was in shock and I was nursing too. I am absolutely thrilled with that loss. And that makes it a total of 60 lbs lost! WOW!!!! That seriously blows my mind. Now all I want to do is continue to be strict in counting and exercising and keep those pounds off! No More up and down. We are in the home stretch to goal weight now.

One thing I've really been thinking a lot about this week is where your calories come from. You can definitely eat all the junk you want and still count calories but if you really want to be healthy those calories should be coming from a good place. I won't lie, I definitely counted calories on 2 3 cadbury creme eggs this week and maybe a few cadbury mini eggs too. It's unrealistic to think that you're never going to have candy, dessert or anything delicious ever again. But maybe an orange should be what you have with your lunch instead of a 100 calorie snack pack of cheese-its. It's definitely something I'm trying to improve on.

Well, that was mostly my week. Tonight I bought my first size 10 bottom...well, skirt in this case. Up until now I'd only been trying them on and tonight I purchased! Wooooo!!!!!

Fat (free) Tuesday

During my second pregnancy, my pregnancy with H, I decided once she was born I was going to lose all the weight I'd gained since getting married, having J, and then some. I had a c-section and then had to wait 6 weeks before I could be cleared by my gynecologist to exercise and such. I had that appointment on a Tuesday afternoon and that night is when I weighed in for the first time to begin my weight loss journey. And so "Fat (free) Tuesday" was born. I've been weighing in almost every Tuesday since then and trying to keep close track of where I'm at. I wish I had a weekly log of exactly how much weight I'd lost each weigh-in, but I don't. Sad face. But I promise that I'll be posting here every Tuesday night to keep those few people who are reading this up to date on how awesome my weight loss is going.

So, as I said in my first blog post I weighed in last time (now 2 weeks ago because I was busy last week out of town and I don't trust other scales) at 177.8. Traveling last week meant I didn't get as great of a workout as I normally would so I'm not surprised I gained weight that week. But this last week? well...



All I wanted to say was "Boo, you whore!" The scale...not you. And kick it and break it in half (then glue it back together because I like my scale). Ugh! I suck! I'm so incredibly frustrated. For the longest time after Christmas I was sitting at 180 and it seems like my body really wants to go back to that. I am not really sure what happened to make me gain that much this week. I did indulge a little on sweet things but not nearly enough to warrant that! So I've decided I'm starting over in a sense. I'm going back to writing every calorie down, drinking almost 100 oz of water a day and making sure I get at least 60 min of exercise a day. I've been slacking a bit too much. So hopefully next week will be better.

I realized something today as I was on the elliptical at the gym. I used to just go and do the elliptical for 30 min and then be done with my workout. I was only burning 400 calories or so and I was still losing 3-4 lbs a week. Because I was nursing! I was burning 500+ calories more a day just by feeding my baby. I think that was the biggest reason why my first 40 lbs or so came off so easily. I got into the habit of only burning that much and eating about 1500 calories and it just came easy. But now is a different story. In November my body was kinda like "hey, I need calories too!" and stopped producing milk so I had to stop nursing. And that is when my weight loss slowed down and has now been yo-yo-ing back and forth. I'm learning how to do it without that extra help. I can't be a little careless with my eating. I HAVE to get my exercise in.

I did have a small victory this week though. I tried on and FIT INTO a size 10 pair of jeans. Never ever in my life was I a size 10. I don't remember ever wearing anything smaller than a size 14. I am absolutely thrilled to be getting so close to my goal of a size 8. Its so fun to see the difference in my body. I was about 180 lbs when I got married and I was a size 14. But now, at the same weight I'm a 10! amazing. Here's an awesome picture of my bum for your viewing pleasure. :)





That small victory will definitely keep me motivated this week. Happy Fat (free) Tuesday everyone!

First 5k

It is FINALLY nice enough to run outside! WOOOO! I love running outside. Today The Husband and I were finally able to get outside and run for the first time in months together. AND we were able to use our Christmas gift from my Dad and Marsha and take the girls with us! We got a Schwinn double jogging stroller and it's awesome. It's been sitting waiting for us to use it for 2 months now and we were thrilled to finally get outside and test it out. We didn't get to do a long run like we wanted to because of injuries for both The Husband and I but just a mile was better than nothing!


Giggle and Bounce is a really weird name for a blog, huh? Well my inspiration came from 2 different things. I have 2 beautiful little girls with the cutest little giggles ever. J (my 2 year old) loves making H (my 10 month old) laugh. Those giggles are one of my favorite things. And then there's bounce. Well, I run. But this is where the bounce comes from...


So, how did I start running, you ask? Well, I'll tell you.

Remember that not athletic person I mentioned before? Well in my head running was the worst of all sports and physical activities ever. Who would want to run for 5 miles without being required to? I don't know where it came from but I always had such a negative association to running in my head. It's terrible, it's hard, it's not fun. Even in middle school and high school I always thought running was horrific. I am ashamed to say that when we were required to run a mile in gym class in 8th grade...I cheated. I only ran 4 laps around the track instead of 5. Partially because I hated running and partially because I was embarrassed about how slow I "ran." And then in high school I didn't try out for the soccer team because I'd been told there was a mile run for the try outs. 1 mile and I didn't do it because I didn't think I could.

So in July of 2012, I had lost about 15 lbs and The Husband's company was sponsoring a 5k run in Salt Lake City. Don't ask me why but I thought it would be a great idea to sign up. So for the next 3 months The Husband and I "trained" for the 5k (3.1 miles). Which really means I was huffing and puffing on the treadmill on a daily basis trying to add distance to how far I could run and he was going out once a week and running like it was nothing. By August I had lost 25 lbs or so and it was getting A LOT easier to run. The treadmill however sucked. I started off just trying to run a mile. It's possible that I had done it before but never before this journey do I remember being able to run a mile without stopping. After the first time I ran a mile on the treadmill I was so happy. Something so little had been so difficult for me and now I could do it. And then I could run 2 miles and then 3. Suddenly, I was a runner.

This is me after running 3.1 miles for the first time.

The week before the 5k, The Husband and I began running outside. All this time I had been telling The Husband "Oh I like the treadmill. It's nice." But I had NO idea what I was missing! Running outside was so beautiful and refreshing and not terrible at all! (see above for previous opinion) Something clicked during that week and I was hooked. Running had become my exercise of choice.

The Husband and I ran the 5k together in October and finished with a 34 min time. Not too terrible for a first timer, huh? I loved the atmosphere of hundreds of people running together and the cheering and free food that came with the race. It was so much fun and I immediately wanted to sign up for another one.


So now The Husband and I are signed up for a Half Marathon on May 4th! I mentioned before that we've both had some injuries that have been keeping us from running. I've got terrible shin splints and he has a sprained ankle. So hopefully our official training will be starting up here pretty soon.

Happy Running Season Everyone!