Wordless Wednesday

My day and/or thoughts in pictures.

Miguel

After a good Jeopardy episode

Always.

Gnocchi with Sausage & Kale courtesy of Bevcooks

It was delish. P.S. I love Baby Mamma.

source makemelaughgifs.tumblr.com

Few of my Danger Foods

Pretzel rods. I consider these a 'healthy' snack. Pretzels aren't awful, but by no means are they healthy. 37 calories per rod. Especially when you chow down 5 of them in one sitting. That is only possible if I dip them in laughing cow 'light' (of course!) swiss cheese wedges. 

Laughing cows 35 calories wedges, you complete me. Two at a time though? With 5 pretzel rods? You complete my thighs, my ass, my bat wings (see picture to the left, that's a bat wing). This is just a preview of my diet this week, after losing 6 pounds. I also had a strawberry milkshake from McDonalds and probably gained those 6 pounds back in that one trip to McIhatemyself.

I have the worst PMS cravings. I cannot be alone, but man do I feel it sucking on that guilt straw.

Okay- done bitching. The good news? I found a Zumba class in my hometown that has a $3.00 drop in class fee and offers evening classes two times a week. Time to step it up! I hope this Fridays weigh-in doesn't reflect this horrible week I'm having. Wish me luck!

Drumroll please...

I had my first weigh in yesterday and it wasn't officially a whole week since I first weighed myself but I am down 6 lbs! Now remember, when you carry as much excess as I do, it tends to fall off a lot faster at first. I was pretty excited for that! I also measured myself and those numbers remained the same.  I lost an inch on my neck apparently and half an inch on an arm. I can't remember where I put the tape around myself to get an accurate measurement of My Bertha, so I'll have to start again with that.

I hope Starbucks has a healthy(ish) option today, I need a fix.

Peace,
T

Thoughts from Thursday

Someday...

 

This is amazing

Sum it all up- I'm feeling inspired (now) & happy from Parks & Rec.

Peace,
T

Things I'm Good At

The following is a brief list of things I am good at:

1. The Hustle, we already have discussed my amazing hustle skillz.

2. Throwing food into a skillet and making a semi decent meal aka cooking

3. Applying chapstick

4. Driving (I'm seriously like thee best driver)

5. Making people cry (Come on, with my music! Not because I'm mean. Okay not always because I'm mean)

6. Celebrity trivia

7. Googling (this really is a skill, just ask my husbee)

8. Finding funny things on the internet to share with my homies like this little gem

Man Parrot..hah

 And another, my sister Mirandas personal favorite:

Ice Cube & Ice T

 Things I am NOT good at:

1. Waking up at 6:30 AM as previously promised.

Peace,
T

My Bertha

Howdy. I did it, I weighed myself! I'm not going to publicly share that weight though, unless I get down to like 120 pounds, than I'll shout that shit from the rooftop! But at this point, it would just depress you as it does me. There is no reason for all of us to be sad!

I had a great conversation with my sister Stacy yesterday and it got me thinking again about why it's so important to do this. I was explaining my frustration with my husbee. Every couple argues, we're no different. This all started while out for Valentines day at Red Lobster. Now, I haven't put a lot of pictures of myself full body on this blog mostly because I don't take full body pictures anymore (duh) but my biggest body trouble area, is my belly or My Bertha. I am full on apple shaped. Apple shaped, by the way, is not as cute as it sounds.

ME

So putting apple shaped Tessa in a bolted down booth drives my anxiety through the roof. My belly either ends up on the table (for serious, just set my plate on my belly please!) or tucked underneath the table (y-e-s.) and overall it is both embarrassing and uncomfortable though it does make me laugh legit out loud thinking of how ridiculous I probably look to people walking by the table! Overall, it just puts me in a bad mood. My husband is on the receiving end of my frustration and that is not fair. Although, he did marry this apple shaped hottness so that's on him! My Bertha is just another example of my weight interfering with my life and creeping up and ruining a nice date with the hubs.

Ruby y'all

The title of this blog "My Bertha" is inspired by the ever so fabulous Ruby Gettinger. I loved her show and have watched the episodes numerous times on Netflix. She also is a big girl who's worked her buns off and has lost over 400 pounds total on her journey. Maybe even more! She carries her excess weight in her hips and butt and named them appropriately 'Bertha'. Ruby is such an inspiration to so many women. She is adorable and I wish she was my bff in real life. I love that she can bring such light and love to a topic many shy away from. I haven't actually given my stomach a name but I've called it numerous things. Mostly - a pain in my ass or boob table also works.

I'm hoping this story inspires you and most of all, if you happen to come across this and have a similar story, believe, you are never alone.

I had two incidents today full of fail, one- when I attempted to make kale chips. My boss made some last week and they were so so delish. I put too much oil on them and they were soggy and just ugh. Tasted good! Looked disgusting. Fail number two- I attempted to juice today but I  forgot to buy apples (for you non-juicers, apples are a huge ingredient to proper juicing) without it the lemon ingredient always overpowers everything else and it ends up way to lemony. Such a waste.

Tomorrows goal: get up at 6:30 AM and walk. Make it happen, me!

Peace,
T

Time to Celebrate Valentines Day Y'all

Yes, Valentines day might have been 2 days ago but my hubalub works the night shift (lame) so we never go out during the week. That leaves Saturday and Sunday and because I work Monday thru Friday I like my Sundays free. I have to make sure we are back home before 9 to watch the latest Walking Dead! That shows just getting so good! We do not have fancy cable with a DVR. I miss it, but we save a lot of money by not having it.

Napoleon doing my Celebrate Valentines dance

We are thinking dinner and movie and that works for me! We never do anything together, so this will be a nice change of pace. Couldn't come at a perfect time since come Monday I'm finally going to attempt to diet/exercise at the same time. One last hurrah! I'll be good, maybe. I just want a nice chicken dish, shouldn't be too hard to find or keep healthy.

I have been preparing for this upcoming week by spending hours on pinterest gathering cheap & healthy meals. It was a day well spent. I was able to do this because I was sick and home from work on Friday. I have been dealing with acid reflux and it pretty much makes it impossible for me to sleep. Usually it wakes me at 5 in the morning and lasts about 2 hours. Thursday I felt sick on and off all day and I just couldn't sleep that night. I won't go into details but I eventually fell asleep probably around 4am. There was pretty much no way I was going to work Friday after that.

I know that my acid reflux is only made worse by my diet. I didn't even have these problems until three years ago. Such an uncomfortable feeling. It's one of the reasons I want to make these changes stick. I have no problem being fluffy if I'm healthy too but the truth is, I'm not.

I will have an actual goal and a plan in place next time you hear from me. I hope to outline the goal here and make weekly updates. I also bought this book to read: 

 I've heard really good things about it. If reading about diets alone made you lose weight, I'd be super fit! I've read so many of these books, no regrets though since I do like to be educated about food. I'm fascinated by the psychology of it all.

On another note isn't Napolean so cute up there doing his dance? I miss Jon Heder. I wish he did more things in Hollywood. He's doing the valentines day dance for this post.

While I was out looking for a good gif, I found this:

How amazing is that video? Love that batman onesie. Maybe this will be my goal weight pajamas? My husband would love that. Finally have a body to wear skanky sleepwear and all I want is an adult onesie. and I would rock that mother f*cker.

Peace out,
T

Wordless Wednesday (almost)

Polly (My MIL) brought me this

Me and the hubalub watched more of this

I joined a couch to 5k program on Facebook (woot)

I received my order of more of this (amazing)

I need to spend more time in this. Neat bedframe!

Peace homies-
T

Hershey Kisses for Breakfast

Howdy! Let's get right to business. Do you ever get super frustrated after busting your ass and seeing that you've barely burned off that Hershey kiss(es) you enjoyed for breakfast?  So frustrating! Those are the times I have to push myself.

I'm not very good at pushing myself, as made obvious by my lack of keeping up with this blog. It's not because I'm a bad blogger, it's because I'm a bad dieter/exerciser. Nothing to post and update!

OR *Stop starting over!* Just kidding, LOVE this.

Yet tomorrow is a new day and I am excited to hop on that treadmill at the crack of dawn and persevere. I worked out to Dance Central tonight for about 35 minutes and the game said I had only burned 90 calories! WHAT! How is that possible? I can barely breathe!? I went online and looked up the calories burned in regards to my actual weight and I was satisfied with those results. I don't know what they base those calories on, but obviously not someone quite as fluffy as myself.

That pink blob in the upper right corner is me

I have to make my crazy eyes face or else my eyes disappear in my eye fat.

Fitness Tracker aka pick a playlist and we'll randomly tick away a calorie count low enough to make you want to macarena your way off a bridge.

In other news I have been smoke free for over a week now. It has been surprisingly easy! I really think I was just ready. Chris joined me in quitting a few days later and he's done really well. We even were at a bar this past Saturday and didn't even feel tempted. Even non-smokers will smoke when drinking! It's interesting, I feel like I don't miss any part of it. Not like I thought I would. I feel plugged in and connected! I don't feel different physically, but I wasn't that heavy of a smoker even though I had smoked for 10 years.

I also have cut down drastically on my pop (soda, if you are a weirdo) intake. I can't say I've given this up completely, because that would be a lie. It feels really good to be drinking so much water though. I think these small changes will add up to big differences in my life, I am hopeful!

Dieting & exercising are two words that go together like fedora and douchebag, but for whatever reason I can't seem to do them at the same time. I blame this on the fact that Tessa and organization are two words that do not go together. I need organization to create healthy, cheap meals that I can purchase one week at a time. That involves a lot of prep work and I'm a last minute kind of girl when it comes to food. That is next on my list! Create healthy meals and plan plan plan! OR- Find a blog where someone else has already done this and gone to the trouble of documenting the process for me! That should help. Have I mentioned that I love the internet?

Tonight, I'll leave you with this. It goes without saying but:

For realz.

 Night loves.
-T

My thoughts on the Grammys: Not enough Beyonce. It was tragic. This sure did help ease the pain though:

Get that man some chapstick! Pronto!

I Go Back

Every story has a beginning so let's go back shall we? I don't know about you, but I love blogs. I read at least 5 daily and have about 50 bookmarked. What do I enjoy the most? Pictures! Maybe I'm nosy, or just visual. Either way, you can't really have a weight loss blog without some before pics, can you! And since I have no shame, you're in luck. I'm also pretty photogenic so that helps. I am going to post some pictures that I already have on my computer since so far I am having fun with this blog and want to keep it easy peasy.

 

Baby me. "Feed me!" I probably tried to shove that huge orange balloon (ball?) into my mouth and failed. I guess I'm pretty normal sized for a child. I wasn't a huge chunk or anything. I was born at 7 something pounds while both my sisters were born at 6 something. Nothing too crazy.

Baby me still, playing in a pot. Or a huge bucket. Who really knows? 

Toddler me looking quite tan and blonde but average sized for a wee little one.

Child me. I'm guessing this is halloween and that I was a fancy bow-tied waitress with the ability to see the future with my crystal ball? 

How cute was child me? I loved baby dolls. I mostly added this to show an example of my parents amazing photo taking skillz. 

Another little pic of me around the same age. I'm the one with no pants, not the one wearing socks as pants. Parents, center! Life before digital cameras, yuck.

Stacy and me and a giant pumpkin, I don't think I'm vogueing here just trying to block the sun. At this point I definitely started to gain weight. No turning back!

Rock that Dino shirt! Leg up, total Tyra on our hands here! Also the first time I colored my hair, it matched the rim of this picture. Not a very flattering ensemble, but since I'm pretty sure I was pre-teen here that was okay. I'm still proud to say that was 1 of maybe 3 cartoon related items I owned. I don't know why Disney thinks all skinny-challenged people want to adorn Tweety Bird.

I think this was my first day of 8th grade? Maybe 9th. God my clothing were hideous. They did not have cute fat clothes for teenage girls of the 90s!

Despite my size, I rarely shied away from tap dancing my way across a stage in front of total strangers barely dressed. Except my sophomore year, I bowed out of the recital, I was self conscious and very much a shy teenage girl that year. I remember regretting not dancing with my class though, and despite feeling uncomfortable didn't miss another recital.

Senior year! So many failed diets and horrible outfits under my belt at this point. This homecoming dress was a last minute find online and I loved it.

Graduation night! Look how cute and excited this girl was to be getting out of high school! I love short hair, despite looking Jodie Fosterish to some, I love it and want it back!

The slide was broken I could not slide. But as they say...

Fake it till you make it!

1 year out of high school, headed back to pass on the crown. Of awesomeness.

Same year 2003, with my favorite shirt. "Famous". I don't remember where I got that shirt but I miss it. It made me feel so sassy! Work it sista!

Fast forward to today. Today as in a few months ago since I'm currently back to boring lame person hair again.

So there's my life and weight in pictures. When I say I've always been overweight, it's not just something I say. It's true. I have no idea what it feels like to be thin. I honestly can't remember ever wearing a size in single digits. That's okay, you can't miss something you never had! For health reason though, this goal of mine is an important one.

I hope you had fun traveling down memory lane with me!

Peace out homies,
T