Biggest Loser -- Episode 1 (thoughts and spoilers)

Ok -- so I finished the premier of the Biggest Loser and I have a few thoughts. It took me a little longer to watch the show than I would like because I made sure I was up moving and exercising while it was on. Ironically I had a friend mention on Facebook about how it was counterproductive for her to watch the show while chowing down on grub -- I agree!

I thought the challenge was interesting. I couldn't hear all of the instructions over my exercise bike (I was doing this in the morning while the rest of the house was asleep), but I guess they had to go get letters in the pit of balls while the kids told them which letters to go to.

The white team (Jillian's team) won and it's a good thing because they had a few obstacles this week. First, Jillian had three of her five team members kicked out of the gym during the first workout. She was brutally harsh on them, but I honestly think it's what they needed. You can't be all nice when you are expecting them to give it their all.

Then following the challenge one of the contestants from the white team, Nikki, decided to quit the show. I can see how she thought it was really difficult and that she said she wasn't emotionally ready for it, but it really sucks that she took away the opportunity from someone else that was ready. At first I was frustrated with Jillian for letting her quit so easily, but I can understand after she explained it to Bob that she didn't want to waste her time with someone who already decided that it wasn't for her. I hope Nikki does go home and go to a therapist and gets the help she needs to put her in the right place to be able to focus on herself.

So now the white team is down to four members, but they do have a five pound advantage that they won at the challenge earlier in the show.

They are the first team to weigh in and they do respectable, followed by the red team and then the blue team. Unfortunately the white team came in with the lowest percentage of weight loss and instead of going to the elimination room they ranked the white team in order of their weight loss and the person with the lowest was automatically going home. I felt bad when I saw that it was TC after I kind of criticized him the other day, but I hope he learned what he needed to to be able to shed the weight for himself and his family.

It is going to be interesting with the kids going home now and to follow their journey in the everyday world. It's almost more realistic than just being at the ranch all the time.

I'm super excited to see the next episode -- hopefully I can fit in some exercise and cleaning tonight so I can have it on.

My thoughts on the Biggest Loser -- so far ...

I have to preface this with saying I haven't seen the entire first episode. My plan is very deliberate, though. I can only watch the Biggest Loser if I am doing something active. It seems kind of counter productive to enjoy an episode of the BL while sitting on the couch eating a bowl of cereal.

I have about an hour left in the season premire.

With that being said, I do have some thoughts already.

I guess I'll start with the obvious -- the kids. I think it is great that the show is offering these three kids the chance of a lifetime and letting them learn how to eat healthy and be active. Noah (Bingo) is sure full of personality and I think a lot can be learned from these youngsters. With that being said, I know they are not going to be weighing, but it looks like they will be helping the adults during the challenges and I'm interested to see how their overall experience goes. 

As I watched the introductions of the contestants I think one of the stories that really stuck out to me was that of TC. He felt so guilty for the injuries his son suffered in a car accident because TC's seat came undone and he believed it was due to his weight. It's a heartbreaking story. The one thing that kind of bothered me though was he talked about how many times he tried to get on the show and wasn't selected. The accident was two years ago (I think) and he said he made a promise to his son that he would drop the pounds. Why is he just relying on the show to get him to lose the weight? 

Another contestant that I'm especially interested in is Jackson Carter. He is 21 years old and from Layton, Utah. This is where I grew up so I feel a connection (even though I have never met the young man). His story is about how he came out of the closest when he was 9 (I believe) and then was picked on and started to put on the weight. He seems to have a lot of personality, though, and I can't wait to watch his transformation.

I'm about to the part in the episode where the teams are going to compete in their first challenge.

On a side note -- can I just say that weight is just a number on the scale. I got so annoyed when I saw someone complain on Facebook yesterday about how Jillian Michaels should be yelling at the contestants because she doesn't know what it's like to be obese. She has said before that she was overweight as a teen. I also heard some numbers being thrown around in relations to that that weighing 175 doesn't make you obese.

It's all about your BMI folks. I'll tell you straight up -- my BMI qualifies me as obese. I don't look like the contestants on the show, but medically I have a great deal of weight to shed to get into the healthy range. It's frustrating when someone hears how much you weight and think that's what it's all about.

OK -- rant over now. I'm hoping to finish the premier of the Biggest Loser tonight and then onto the second episode tomorrow morning!

Friend Making Monday

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Kenlie's blog and I always look forward to Friend Making Monday. If you haven't done it before you definitely should! Here are my responses for the week:

Simple Questions

1. Outside my window I see…nothing. I'm in my classroom right now and I don't have any windows. I can't wait for our new school to be built.

2. My kitchen counters are…a dark brown granite. I absolutely love them! Now if only I could keep them cleaned off.

3. Yesterday I drank…some water, milk and apple juice.

4. My cell phone is…my lifeline. I have the Galaxy S 3 and I can't tell you how much I love it! Now if only T-Mobile would get 3G/4G service here my world would be perfect.

5. My computer is…everywhere. I have the computer I use at school and then we have a laptop and a desktop computer at home. I also have an Ipad (for work) and my cell phone and Nook both have Internet access as well. You could say that I am very well connected.

6. My favorite reality show is…whatever one I'm watching at the moment. I started Biggest Loser last night (more on that to come later) and I am so excited for this season.

7. My workouts are…getting better. I did the exercise bike for 20 minutes this morning and I'm trying to add some random things like lunges and squats.

8. The last book I read is…really good. It was the final book in a series by Cindy M. Hogan called Created. The first books were Watched and Protected. They are young adult books, but that is just my style.

9. My week will be….crazy busy! I have so much going on today and then tomorrow and Thursday I'm taking money at basketball games at night. It will definitely fly by.

10.  So far 2013 has been…pretty good. I'm more determined than ever to achieve my goals and I'm really seeing differences in myself already.

Zion National Park

My mother-in-law,C, came to down for Christmas. It was fun because she hadn't been here since EM was born. One of the things that she really wanted to do while here was go to Zion National Park because she had never been. I'm always up for a good trip to Zion so we braved the cold and went out there a couple of days before Christmas.

One of the great things about Zion is all of the unique restaurants in Springdale. One of our favorites is Oscars. It has kind of a southwestern flair and great food! 

The lighting was kind of difficult in the restaurant, but here is DC and is mom and then LD with her as well.

Since it was C's first trip to Zion we stopped at the entrance and took some pictures. The sun was right in my eyes and I couldn't keep them open so you get this pretty goofy face of mine. I don't  know how DC is looking normal.

 

We decided to do the Weeping Rock trail since it isn't too long, we had the kids with us and you end up seeing something pretty cool at the end. I wasn't thinking about how cold it was, though, because the normally weeping rock was actually frozen and the trial was closed the last few steps. It was still pretty cool and something I hadn't seen before.

Next we did the Grotto trail which takes you between the Grotto and the main lodge. It's pretty easy and only about 1/2 a mile. LD had a lot of fun posing in different places and both kids were good sports -- they walked the whole way! 

As we headed back there were some deer between the road and the trail. It was neat because they were so close and all of the cars were stopping to look at them. 

 C had a couple of great family photos that she took on her camera, but I'm on the laptop so I don't have access to them. Once I get on the main computer I will add them at the end. 

I can't wait to go back to Zion again ... maybe next time it will be a little bit warmer!

Christmas Card Book

I love Christmas cards! It's fun to get something in the mail besides bills and I especially love the ones that have photos or a note saying what is going on with the family. It's a fun time of the year to catch up with people.

But what do you do with all of the cards after the holiday season?

I don't like to throw them away so for as long as I can remember I've been storing them in boxes in the garage. They aren't really organized and they don't look very pretty.

In comes the cute idea I've seen on Pinterest and blogs for the last couple of years -- take all of your Christmas cards and put them into a book by hole punching the sides and connecting them with a couple of rings. I decided to add some ribbon to jazz it up a little. I also laminated my front and back covers to make sure my sicker letters wouldn't come off.

Notice anything wrong with my book? Oh yes! The year! I guess I'm really excited for it to be 2013. I did fix the date before I laminated it, but I didn't have all the same number stickers so I don't love the look as much as I loved this one.

Here is what the inside looks like. I could have probably used another ring in the middle for some of the smaller cards, but I didn't have another so this works fine for now.

Here is my finished product with the correct year! I think I am going to start making these for Christmas every year as well as a birthday one where I store all of the birthday cards for the family that we receive. 

Another funky tooth

I never thought I would have to worry about messed up teeth for my children. DC and I both had braces, but they were more just to straighten our teeth some more than for anything else. 

And now insert the picture of LD's most recent adult tooth coming in.

The front tooth on the right of the picture is his first adult tooth. It seems to be coming in just fine after we were finally able to get the other one out. Now he has another tooth coming in behind the tooth to the left of the adult tooth behind the wiggly tooth. 

The front tooth is getting close to ready to come out, but the tooth behind it is totally crooked. I'm hoping once we get the baby tooth out there is some more room and the adult tooth straightens up. 

Here's hoping! I better start saving up for braces now just in case, though.

What I (DID NOT) Wear Wednesday

I'm a little out of the habit of doing a What I Wore Wednesday because I think I practically lived in PJ bottoms and a shirt throughout the holiday break. But today it was back to work and now I'm just in jeans and a t-shirt.

So I thought I would do something a little bit different today in light of my boring outfit. I'm going to show you what I DID NOT wear because I actually threw them in the trash yesterday!

These were my favorite pair of jeans for about the last year. I wore them as much as I could and they definitely look much bigger here than I think my butt is. I told my husband I wanted to hold them up to make it look like one of those weight loss commercials where the people supposedly lost 10 dress sizes!

You can't really tell, but in this picture I'm putting the jeans in the trash. The bottoms are a total mess, one of the buttons on the butt pockets is gone and along one of the back pockets there was starting to be a hole where my underwear was showing -- YIKES! And the biggest reason to get rid of them is that they are just too darn big on me. 

I'm OK to say adios to this pair of jeans. I bought a couple of new pairs with some money that my dad gave me for Christmas and I can't wait to wear them. And now there is no turning back when I'm getting rid of my clothes that are too big for me. I will never be a size 20 again, that's for sure!