Oatmeal for breakfast is a good start to this morning. Hopefully, the rest of my meals for the day follow suit. Might be a good idea to get to the grocery store.

****UPDATE****

Didn't make it to the grocery store. Didn't cook any dinner. Me and the kids have been over my mom's house all day as we prepare for the homegoing of my grandmother. For dinner, we had Pizza Hut pizza for dinner. Personally, I had three slices in the course of 4 hours. Not bad, huh? Not to mention, before I left home this afternoon I did do some crunches and pushups. Yay me!

Wrong Place, Wrong Time, BUT...

Gosh, I haven't seen my cousins in a month of Sundays or more. It's sad that a death in our family had to occur for our more recent gathering. Of course the occasion was sad but that didn't stop me from noticing the physical differences between my sister and I and my two of my cousins--my aunt's daughters. From the looks of things, something was definitely wrong with the picture. "Okay, our side obviously got the fat gene?' I declared.

Clearly that was the case because my mother, my sister, and myself were definitely carrying more weight--especially around the middle--than my aunt and her two daughters. WTF!. And what's worse is that my aunts children are the ones who supposedly LOVE to eat ALL THE TIME. So why, then, was it my sister and I who were carrying all of the fat??? I just want to know!

I mean if they LOVE to eat, what exactly are they eating: fruits, vegetables, beans, multigrains?  That's what I want to know.

Or are they eating and EXERCISING? Could that be it? I know back in our school days my cousins were involved in more athletics than my sister and I. One cousin played softball. The other ran track. When my sister and I talked about playing sports with our mother she would say stuff like, "Y'all don't need to be out playing and sweating in that hot sun. You'll coming home all stink and stuff." SMH. However, no need in dwelling on the past. I'm sure what athletics I didn't play in middle school and high school have very little to do with my current battle of the belly bulge. It's about the here and now.

I can't speak for my sister, but I'm not going to keep being one of the "fat" ones at family gatherings.

Zumba Fitness yesterday evening and PopTarts for breakfast this morning. Combination for success? Fitness experts would surely say "NO!"

Stress--A Fat Burner?

Surely it borders on some level of insanity for a person to wish for a stressful situation to plaque their life simply for the hope of a little weight loss.I wonder who would do something like that?  ALRIGHT ALREADY! I admit it. IT'S ME!  I'm the crazy one. But, WAIT! Before you pounce on me, let me explain. During a rare and random house cleaning moment, I came across a picture of myself --actually, a picture of me and my son--from a few years ago and guess what? Easily, I was at least 20-25lbs smaller thanwhat  I am today. At the time of the picture my son was 2yrs old. As a matter of fact, the picture was taken at his 2yr old birthday party. Without close inspection, a person could have easily thought the picture was taken some 10yrs ago. My face was thin, my usual shapely legs looked as thin as toothpicks. And the killer part is that I wasn't even exercising during that time! When that fact dawned on me, that's when I remembered what was going on in my life at the time. My husband was on the NUT, really showing his a$$ at that time during our marriage, taking me through some serious DRAMA--hence, the divorce shortly thereafter. LOL! But that's why I was so darn skinny! And without any effort! So just for a minute, one little minute, a quick thought entered my head, "Hmmm, maybe a little stress wouldn't hurt." BUT, I came quickly to my senses. Guess it's back to my exercise & diet efforts.

Rockin' the Jeggings...HOT!! or Not

As good as I look in these jeggings that I'm rocking on this beautiful pre-Spring day, the last thing I should be thinking about is the belly bulge hiding beneath my top. Well, I'm not really thinking about it, but it's always there staring me in the face when I get dressed. Even though I feel sexy as all get out, somewhere deep inside I think, "Damn, you'd be even hotter with a flatter belly." Think that stopped me from enjoying a deliciously, satisfying breakfast at Big Boys this morning with my kids. NOT! After all,  breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. Omelets, hashbrowns, turkey sausage, waffle squares. Mmmm. Absolutely delicious! So whenever I treat myself or am treated out for breakfast, I make sure I eat good--you know, get the day started right! I ate good and I feel great--belly fat not withstanding!

Food vs Sweets

7:45 P.M.

Me and the kids indulged in Olive Garden for dinner this evening. A much appreciated change from our usual burgers & fries or pizza. After salad and breadsticks I didn't have much room left for the actual meal so takeout it became.A couple of hours later I started craving those fudge striped cookies--no, I never got around to throwing them out. But I figured eating a bit more spaghetti was better for me than eating the cookies. From my personal assessment, foods high in sugar are more damaging to ones belly than actual food. At least most foods contain some nutritional benefit.

Chicken--The Enemy

"Okay, honey. Looks like we have to cut chicken out of our diet." I announed to my daughter when I came home from another informative session at the beauty salon. The loctitians at the shop are always discussing informative and interesting topics, either with each other or with their clients. Anyway, my daughter promptly looked at me like I'd lost my mind FOR REAL and started cracking up! Only she didn't know how serious that I was.

Interesting enough this was the second time that I heard in the beauty shop of someone warning of consuming too much chicken. Difference is, the first time they didn't really say why. During that conversation, they'd only said it wasn't good to eat chicken more than once or twice a week. This time, however, the conversation went further into the why's, pertaining to the enormous amount of hormones injected into the chickens so they can grow faster or be bigger. Yes, I'd heard of this before, but I'd never tied it into why my daughter has always battled with her weight--besides the fact that we ate too much fast food & too many sugar filled sweets. I cut out beef years ago. We eat  more veggies. I switched to brown rice instead of white rice. I bake food instead of frying it, etc. Still, my daughter remains on the heavier side. And you know my belly issue.

Therefore, while she's on her weight-loss kick and I'm revving mine back up, I'm going to tweak our diets a tad bit and see what happens. Maybe with this, she'll be more likely to eat more fish.