Chips and Chocolate

Some people are just blessed with good genes while others have to work at it. I know a few ladies who were able to easily lose all their pregnancy weight, with all of their pregnancies, in less than a month after giving birth. Am I jealous? Yes! I'm one of those people who has to work at, except I lack motivation. In fact, I broke down and am writing this blog entry because I just ate nearly half a bag of Lay's Kettle Cooked chips - seriously! Ugh!  

Usually people are either salty or sweet snackers. Can you be both because chips and chocolate are my vices! I may or may not have bought 4 bags of chocolate at 70% off while shopping at Target yesterday!

A few months ago I began logging my food and exercise habits on My Fitness Pal. It's incredibly easy to use so there should not be any excuses...well you would think. I was do amazing for several weeks and actually lost weight without really exercising. I had not really realized how much mindless eating I was doing prior to using My Fitness Pal! Somewhere down the road, I lost my motivation and haven't been logging in. It is time to change that, starting tomorrow (ha).

If you're part of My Fitness Pal, add me - melissanlsn. I need accountability to lose these last 9 lbs!

The Four Gift Rule

Christmas has become virtually synonymous with materialism. The average American adult plans on spending $781 on Christmas gifts this year! To be honest, we haven't budgeted well in the past and this figure probably is more realistic to our past spending than I believe it to be.

My husband and I decided that we want to instill in our children the concept of a simple Christmas. One that consists less of the "I want" attitude. Honestly, we all have those tendencies, don't we?

Our oldest daughter just turned four this past week; I think it is important emphasizing this at an early age. I can imagine it would be very difficult to try and switch from the "I want" mindset after they're accustomed to a giant free for all Christmas.

We are striving to focus on the simple things: faith, family and memories. We want there to be less of a focus on gifts and Christmas lists. Christmas is much deeper than those reasons and we want our celebration to reflect this choice.

I recently found this idea online and we are going to try it this year on our girls, The Four Gift Rule.