Life with a Side of Squats

Saturday, March 17, 2018

St. Patrick’s Day a few years back. Looking cool and listening to Bagpipes. The bagpipes were loud.

Happy St. Paddy’s day everyone! Hopefully you had your green on today so you didn’t get pinched. I have always believe in wearing green on this Holiday, for some reason I always feel like I need to deck myself out in the color. Today was a very busy day for me. The baby slept 9 hours straight last night... I am still in utter shock, but I will take it. So I woke up with lots of energy. Started the morning off with Green Chocolate chip pancakes and then headed off to barre. The pancakes were all natural mix and the chocolate chips where Dairy Free, Soy Free, and Gluten Free. All of my eating has to be dairy free. My daughter was diagnosed with a Dairy Allergy at 5 weeks old, and since I am still pumping I have to cut out all dairy from my diet. So no pizza, lasagna, casseroles with lots of cheese... to say the least I miss those things, but I will do anything for my kids! Below are a couple of pictures of my pancakes. They are green to get into the spirit.

The Pancakes were delicious! I always make enough to eat throughout the week. Plus my son came home today and he loves pancakes. After making pancakes I went to Barre... no not the Bar...Barre it is a workout center. I LOVE Barre, I don’t know how many ways I can say or show it. I have never liked working out. I hate running, jogging, the whole working out by myself, I am not good at. I need other people around me to push me and to hold me accountable. I found Barre through my friend and sister in law. I remember the first class I went to I thought I was going to die. My whole body was shaking and I was using muscles I hadn’t used in a long, long, time. But as I am sitting there, sweat dripping, me cursing in my head, the instructor yells to embrace the shakes because that is our body changing. I remember leaving the class knowing 3 things: 1) I was not going to be able to walk the next day. 2) I had just pushed myself to limits that I didn’t think I could reach, and 3) I would be back. My first class was a year ago. I love at Barre there isn’t just one way todo a move, the instructor is constantly showing you ways to modify the move based on what your body needs that day. Barre is my drug, I crave it, I have to go to the workout, I literally wake up every morning needing to go to the class. It is also my one hour of peace, that I am able to just focus on myself, and let everything else go. Barre is my Zen.

After Barre( which was a good workout today). I came home and snuggled with Adalynn until I had to pick up my parents and son from the airport. Of course it was raining when I had to go get them, and then they had to load up the suitcases in the rain...go figure. All in all it was a great day. Tomorrow I am back to walking. Until then don’t get into too many Shenanigans.

Thursday, March 15, 2018

Happy Spring Break! If you aren't on Spring Break... Happy Spring! Usually Spring Break is a time for me to catch up on everything that I haven't been able to do the last 3 months. This Spring Break we have been enjoying outside here in Texas while we can. We don't get a lot of days in the 70's. It is either really cold here or really hot, so we enjoy these days while we can. My husband, Baby, and I have been hanging out at the house this week. My parents whisked my son away to Colorado for a Skiing adventure...Lucky! On Pinterest I have seen a lot of Pins geared towards walking to lose weight. I love walking because it gets you outside and surprisingly it is a nice way to meet people that live around you. Plus I have an infant and sometimes walking is the only way she will sleep. I have decided to incorporate walking (weather permitting) into my exercise regime for the next month. Below are the 2 pins that I will be following from March 15- April 15. Each Pin has been linked to their website.

Per this chart- I am 5'4 and weigh 190 lbs. I should be walking 33 minutes per day.

I will start this tomorrow. Week 1 will go from this Friday to next Friday....so on and so on.

Today and yesterday we went for a walk. Yesterday my daughter would not nap and she was getting cranky. I loaded her up into the stroller and we went for a stroll. I usually have my set route that I take, but yesterday I knew I needed to walk a little bit longer. So I went down one of the streets in my neighborhood that I have not been down before. Let me tell you, it was nice deviating from my original path. I was able to see houses that I have not seen before and was able to walk without really knowing where I was going. We ended up walking for an hour! Adalynn only slept for 30 minutes of it, but I now have a new area to walk and explore. Plus the bonus is that I still haven't been down a few of the streets. I am really looking forward to this next month! Keep you updated!

Adalynn asleep for some of the walk.

Really pretty trees that are blooming right now. They are also adding to my Allergies.

Love my purple Nike tennis shoes I got a couple of Christmas' back.
I wear these everywhere!

Hey There, Ya You!

Welcome to my page! I never know how to start one of these things or introduce myself. Hey, Hi, Hello, Welcome.... My name is Lauren Benavidez and I am fat (overweight) whatever you would like to call it. I know this because I have been overweight since my son was born....10 years ago. I had the healthy pregnancy and the mindset: I am going to get big might as well eat whatever I want. Well it was nice while I was pregnant but ended up biting me in the rear end down the road. With that lovely mind set I ended up gaining 60 pounds with my son. Needless to say I lost only 20 pounds after birth. I was 120 when I got pregnant and 183 when I gave birth. Throughout the years I maintained the 160 pounds and never lost it. I worked out from time to time and never found something that I truly liked. I played softball growing up so never really had to watch what I ate. Well once softball ended after high school I still ate like was playing...Can't do that! Okay I am getting off track, so here I am today,...I just had another baby (so precious and sweet), I did better with this pregnancy and only gained 30 pounds. When I delivered I was at 206. 12 weeks later now and I am at 190. I am hoping that this blog will make me accountable for losing my weight. I have struggled for 10 years now and I am done. Now I am not a health nut nor do I go on these wacky diets. I want to go on this journey the healthy way, and sure I will have some days where I don't do anything, or the days where I eat everything in the kitchen, but for the most part I am going to do what is healthy for my body. So I thought it would be fun in this journey to try things from Pinterest. I have a whole board of things that I have pinned and have not tried. I will blog about the health pin, updates on how I am doing on it, what I am liking about it, and what is difficult about it. So if you are ready ( I am) lets get this party started!