Goodbye 2016!

I have heard from so many people that they are ready to see 2016 go.  Although it wasn't the most magical year, I still loved it.  Although there were trials and heartaches and disappointments, there were also a lot of highs and memories. 

We started the year off with Jase starting, doing and completing his thesis for his Masters.  We had some good weather down in South Texas and only had a few VERY cold days.  Kendyl changed schools and went to such an amazing classroom that started her learning career in a good way and jumpstarted her success.  I finished work at the center, and magically stopped getting so sick every 2 weeks.  My best friends had babies, got married, and bought houses.  I ran races, made more friends, made memories and said goodbye to some of the best girls ive ever known.  We accepted a job STILL in Texas and made the big move.  We went on a vacation for a month in Utah.  We partied, swam, laughed, danced, and had the time of our lives there. We sure love and appreciate our Utah summers. 

K bug lost more teeth and started Kindergarten here in our new town.  E-bow has enjoyed having mom to himself and playing all day long. Jase got bucked off his horse and found himself in the ER, then back to Utah for surgery.  I'm sure he is happy to see this year go. We made a few new friends and have been enjoying the smiles on our faces again.  Although I am not surrounded by a ton of people, I am learning to work on my self worth and image.

We had a wonderful Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Jases sweet Aunt Tammy passed away after a valiant fight of cancer.  We took on 26 chickens, 5 bottle calves and basically 2 cats.  We are now down to 15 chickens, 3 bottle calves and 1 cat.

We have big plans for 2017, although they are more mine than anything.  We want to be more adventurous, more brave, and more giving.  We want to work on our parenting.  We want our kids to take risks and become more grateful.  We are sad and happy to see 2016 go, but we are ready for 2017.

Week 3 Macros

Starting weight: 146.2
Current weight: 143.2
I have lost a total of 3 pounds.  Some would be thrilled, some would be sad, but I am perfectly ok with the scale going down instead of up.  This is the Christmas season where there are treats and parties galore!  People go to dinner and eat out a lot more than normal because they are out and about and not at home.
I have splurged a bit, and I am ok with that.  I made some treats with chocolate and m&ms, and chex and pretzels and candy cane and I just couldn't pass it up.  you know what, that is ok!  We also ate out but I made sure I made healthy choices.  Instead of fries I got steamed veggies.  And instead of blowing the entire day, I ate healthy and prepared for a night out.
My workouts are actually going great.  I am getting strong and I have better endurance.  I am still feeling the "burn" and the day after leg shakes and arm aches.  To be honest though, working out was never the hard part for me.  I love to workout, I just didn't know how to treat my workouts with food.  My mindset was workout = go ahead and have that treat, you earned it!
Anyway, for the weekend of Christmas I took 2 days off of working out, and I ate my cookies, my fried food, my brownies, my steak, my greasy cheesy potatos, and my pumpkin pie.... so I KNOW there wont be a down weight with the next weigh in.  And it might even go up a pound or so.  BUT, Monday morning I got right back to counting my macros and working out with some new gear I got for Christmas.

Week 1 with macros

Stats:
Starting weight : 146.2
Current Weight: 144.4

Feelings:  I feel great.  I only had munchies a few times.  I had to make a group lunch for my husbands branding day.  We had cookies, chips, rolls, all the good stuff.  I caved and had a little handful of chips and 1 soft gingerbread cookie.  That night we went to a concert at the Silos and ate my share of Kettle corn but opted out of pizza, grilled cheese, hot chocolate etc.  Instead we hit up Chik-Fil-A after and got a grilled chicken sandwich. Then the next night we had our church Christmas party.  I kind of knew going into it that I could eat as much ham as I wanted, 1 small potato. limit my rolls and salad! Well, I had a few rolls, 1 hot chocolate and a quarter piece of cake.  I came out happy and full.

Non Scale Victories:  I was able to wear my skinny Jeans to the concert WITH a pair of stretchy under armour pants underneath, and I was comfortable.  That is BIG, cause normally I want to just wear sweats lol!  I also worked out 5 days this week! And I logged pretty much all my food and stayed so dang close to my macros.  If I ever went over it was only by a few grams.

I had the munchies last night and wanted something sweet so dang bad.  I decided I wanted to make a banana ice cream and throw in some Strawberry IdealFit protein powder and fruit.  Well, I was so dead beat tired and lazy, I skipped it all together and went to bed.

All together my first week was not as hard as I thought.  There were times where I had to opt for a salad instead of a full blown taco, but with enough salsa, I was in heaven anyway.

How to start with Macro Counting

I am really really confused with things easily.  I have been reading about Macros for literally 3 months and didn't do it because something just didn't make sense.  It seemed really hard and something I didn't want to mess with. I am going to explain this at a "dumbed down" level, because that is really what I needed.
First off you need to calculate how many Macros you need in a day.  You can go to trainers, etc, but I found an online calculator HERE.  I knew I needed about .8 grams of protein per pound that I weigh. Don't worry, this calculator does the math for you.  It will also tell you the carbs and fat you need as well. 
So this diet is pretty much counting calories, BUT, it is counting where the calories come from.  I guess this sentence is what made it click for me.  So for me, on my workout days, I am reaching for 1505 Calories. Broken down, I need 162 G Carbs, 120 G Protein and 42 G fat.
I then downloaded myfitness pal. I decided to buy the advanced version so it would literally have a graph for me of where I am at throughout the day as I enter my food.  You can go in and manually set your macros goals.
What I love about MyFitnessPal app is that the database of food is crazy big.  Going to Chick fil A, on the app.  Going to pretty much any restaurant is on the app.  And, for the food I have in my home, it has a scanner so I just scan, set how much I eat and move on. You can also enter recipes where it will break it down for you per serving as well.
I am only on day 3 of this. I am still learning and I will share ALL the helpful tips and hints as I learn them.  I also suggest following Macro counters on Instagram, and get on pinterest and start pinning. 
One other thing that scared me was usually people counting macros are eating some weird stuff that I know my family will not touch.  This isn't the case with everyone.  Usually at dinner time I see how much of each catergory I have left.  The other night I had barely any carbs at all left.  We were having tacos.  I obviously could not have a tortilla, so I opted to put my 2 oz of taco hamburger on about 2 cups of lettuce.  I opted for no cheese but could have about 3/4 cup of salsa.  (guys, I seriously love salsa). 
I also use a protein shake from IdealFit HERE as well as a pre workout drink and BCAAS. Their protein is SO dang good.  The only flavor I haven't loved is the strawberry, but once I mixed with Almond milk and some frozen fruit, it was so much better.  It is not at all chalky and fills me up for quite a while.
I will continue to update this journey as I keep going!!

Life should be a Party

This post is about to get very vulnerable.  Like, my feelings to the T.  And I don't care if I offend anyone.
Life sometimes really truly sucks.  Its hard being a mom.  It's hard dieting.  Its hard being a hunters wife.  It's hard being a ranchers wife.  Its hard living in the boonies.  It is hard to live a few THOUSAND miles from family and best friends.  It is hard to think up menu plans.  In laws are hard.  Family problems are hard. And compromising with your husband is hard.  and the worst, comparing myself to others.
I have never wanted to let people know how hard some things are.  I never want people to see me sad.  I never want people to look back and say "I knew Tayler, she was always sad."  or "Tayler never wants to do anything." etc.
I look back at my life and I really find myself looking up to those people who "stood out."  They threw the parties.  They laughed at everything.  They were adventurous, funny, KIND, and always lifted me up. 
Although I fall short of many many many of these things, I truly do care about other people.  I care how they are feeling. I care if they are having a fight with someone.  I care if they are going on a Vacation. I want people to feel my happiness.  I want them to feel my need to celebrate every damn thing.  National cookie day, PARTY.  Easton is potty trained, PARTY.  Thanksgiving, nobody is traveling to see us, PARTY.
I want my kids to know that no matter the circumstance, there is always always always something to celebrate.  I look at it as, looking at the bright side of things.  Peoples feelings matter.  Everything in this world can be replaced.  But the way you make people feel is the MOST important thing.  People will NEVER forget how YOU made them feel. 
SO yes, my life is all about a party and I am 100% ok with that.  I would rather celebrate everything, than skip things that could have become a favorite memory. Memories last a lifetime.  So please, go make a memory with your family, friends and kids.  Get out of your comfort zone and realize others may need to see the bright side coming from you to see the bright side of things for them.

Starting Macros

I have figured out my Macro counts and I started with them yesterday.  I am using My Fitness Pal ( the advanced version) to track the macros.  So far it isn't terribly hard.  But I do find my self not hungry at all. I literally am coming into this eating less that 1000 calories a day and having to up them to about 1500 calories, all while staying within my carbs, fats and proteins.
I am also having a hard time eating carbs without gorging on bread.  I know I can cook up some rice and beans and tortillas and such, but I haven't gone grocery shopping.
So I am starting today at
GULP:
146 pounds.

I will do another weigh in every 2 weeks and post my progress here.  I will also get a starting picture up asap.

Our cow Sweetheart

Isn't it crazy how attached to animals you get?  We had this sweet guy for about 6 weeks.  He made a way into our heart and left a big fat stamp. 
On Tuesday I was working out and noticed that the calves (Sweetheart and Knucklehead) didn't leave my front porch area pretty much all morning.  Although this isn't a red flag, I decided to go out and say hello and give them their morning rub downs before I took them their milk.  Knucklehead just stared at me out of concern and Sweetheart was curled up in a ball hall under the deck.  I rubbed his back and noticed he was pretty hot, kind of like a fever. I also noticed he didn't even lift his head.
I ran to get some milk and he still didn't lift his head.  Knucklehead barged in and wanted his milk so I took him around back so I could help the sick calf.  I pulled him out and helped him stand up, where he immediately fell back down.  With a broken heart, I pulled up a pumpkin (yes, we have yet to carve them from Halloween) and sat on it so I could prop his head up while holding the bucket...
Jase brought home an antibiotic and he was well enough to move about the yard by that night.
The same cycle happened through Friday morning.  Only Friday morning he wouldn't even suck on his milk and was back to falling over when I picked him up.  Jase brought home the bottle with a tube and we stuck it down to his belly for the next few feedings.  We switched up the antibiotic after talking with the vet.
Sadly Saturday morning, it was so cold and so rainy.  We found Sweetheart in the corner of the property and brought him up to the porch.  We toweled him off and I sat with a heat lamp for about an hour or so.  I bawled my eyes out just thinking of the outcome.  I also froze my Hiney off since I was sweaty from a workout and went outside right after.
We decided to bring him inside so we weren't all miserable in the cold.  Kendyl wanted to say a little prayer for him.  In the prayer she said "Please bless Knucklehead won't be lonely" and I lost it.  Literally not 5 minutes later he let out a big sigh and he was gone.
We cried like babies. Every single one of us.
Jase went a dug a hole with one working shoulder in the pouring rain.  Knucklehead won't leave the corner where he last saw Sweetheart.  Let me just say, he has never ever mooed. He is mooing up a storm. My heart is broken.  We will forever miss that cow.  We sound crazy. We live on a Ranch. But dang it, us ranchers care for these animals like family.  We would never ever let them live in less that perfect conditions. Love you Sweetheart.....