Weight Watchers

There are few things that I will always remember during this very strange time with COVID-19:  moving into our new house and feeling the weight of that blessing, John working again, having Ethan and Rebecca and the babies here with us for over a month, having Hannah home, and losing weight. Yep, I'm not sure how it started, but one night several of us were sitting in the family room talking, and we just decided that we would join Weight Watchers. I think John might have received an email promotion (buy 6 months, get 3 free), so we joined before the promotion was gone, but we decided to start the following Monday.

There is power in numbers.  From the beginning, I've had either Hannah or Ethan and Rebecca home with me, and we have been killing it, learning about the plan and making it work.

Hannah and I originally set a goal to lose seven pounds each before she left in a month.  We lost the seven pounds in the first two weeks.  Next, we set a goal to lose 20 pounds each by the time Glo comes home.  We're almost to 15 pounds lost individually...and she comes home in seven weeks.  In the beginning, we were just hoping to hit 10,000 steps a day (and that remains our baseline goal), but this past week, most of us have topped out close to 20,000 on several different days (that's about ten miles a day).  No matter who is home, we head out in the morning with the dogs and walk them.  We then return them home and keep walking.  Like, for several more hours.  I seriously feel like I spend the majority of my day sweaty and gross since I don't want to shower until I'm done exercising.  But holy smokes, we go to bed exhausted each night, with our legs aching quite a bit.  But it's worth it when we see the babies out running with all of us!  And we even found a jogging stroller for sale for $40.  We bought it an hour later.  No more sore hands from pushing the pink umbrella stroller!

Then, Cheese set a new standard for us this week.  Glo does serious reps of sit-ups on her mission (like 300+ each day), and Cheese wants to be able to keep up with her.  So we all started doing ab workouts. And when it's really raining?  We do step aerobics in the family room.  And Rebecca and Ethan have begun bench pressing the babies.

We love it.  We love talking about the food we can eat, and planning what we are going to eat each day.  Everyone goes grocery shopping with phone in hand in order to scan the bar codes to calculate points, and we really work those "free" foods.  And Saturdays, our cheat days?  Yes, we allow ourselves one cheat day a week.  I mean, we're Kennedys.  We can't cut out all of the food that we love.  We make lists of what we're going to eat each Saturday, and while we eat more than we normally do, we still make pretty good choices.

Last weekend, Mark was home, and he decided to join us.  Poor carbo-driven Mark.  He's having a brutal reality check about Tostitos and Cheez-Its.  But like I told the kids the other night, I was worried that we were becoming a "fat family", and I just don't want that to happen.  I'm glad that we're doing all we can to lose a little bit, and gain a healthier lifestyle.  And what an example we are setting for the babies!  Baby runs between one and two miles a day with us (just ask her what her dreams were last night, and she'll run forever).  She's such a trooper as well because while we are power walking (no more running for my degenerating spine discs), she is running.  The entire time.  And now Brother gets out of the stroller a little ways from home and runs home as well.  Ethan has earned a crown for a Strava segment.  We go in the snow, in the rain, in the heat.  It's just part of our lives.

I can always tell Baby is running in a picture by her ponytail ;-)

Cherry is the worst!  We all hate taking her on walks
because she can't even handle seeing another dog.  It's
gotten to the point where it's just easier to pick her up
than try and distract her or walk past another dog.

Rain.

We all LOVE the WW motivational key chain charms.
Rebecca says they only come with 5, 10, 25 and 50 pound
weight loss.  I feel like writing the company and telling
them that a 15 one would not be a bad idea.

Again, the ponytail AND both feet off the ground! ;-)

The Strava run.  I was riding along with them on a bike.  It was amazing to see how they pounded out the miles, and seeing Ethan earn his crown for the segment? WOW!

Making healthy food choices...and helping make dinner!

Baby was doing such a good job running that I decided to buy her new running shoes.  We ordered the New Balance little kids running shoes (yes, they actually make them), and there wasn't even a "break in" time.  She just started running in them from the get-go, and she's never looked back!

 Check out Rox!  14 years old, and she's still got it!