Progress and update so far on my, "getting fit for 2017"...

As you all know, we spend a great deal of our summer at the wave pools and at the beach. Our entire family loves the water and so that's where we spend a lot of our free time. And although I have and use my treadmill weekly, year round. I really step it up in Spring because I need to have my body flat... fit and fabulous for summer. Usually...every spring I will quietly work harder for my summer body. But this year...I figured...why not document it and sort of invite you all along with me. The good, the bad and the ugly. : ) You know what I mean. Is it all... as easy as pie? Absolutely not! Is it all rainbows and sunshine? No it is most definitely not that either. It's tough. Some days it's painless and it's no big deal. And some days it's tough. So...operation get fit...#2. Right here. I started this... the day after Bran graduated JHS, he graduated March 9th. So I kicked this into gear March 10th. This coming weekend will officially be my 1 month anniversary since I started this. Although I do treadmill at home 4 times a week. And I'm pretty strict with myself on that. I have also been walking outside. And riding my bike too. Some days I go alone and someday I go with 1 of the boys or both. Depending on who is available. But...they both love the quality walk time because it gives us a chance to talk while we walk. And spend time together. These are also the tennis courts where Noah has been playing tennis a lot. And fwiw...Noah is actually a *really* good tennis player. I think it's because the tennis courts are in our housing community and they're readily available. 

This day, I walked around my housing community twice. I wanted to do 2 laps. Most of the time I will do 2 laps. 

Also, I found another sneaky way... to add more exercise for myself. I usually drive to the store. Because it's more convenient. It's easier to throw a ton of heavy 2 liter bottles of drinks home in the car... versus lugging it on a bike, that just makes sense to me. So...thank gawd... that I do have a car and I have a drivers license as my main way of transportation. However...I have decided that once a week, I will go to my local 1 and only store in town and do the shopping by bike. That way....I get extra added exercise in and I also scratch off the shopping. I still will hit the store... the day after to carry heavy stuff. But yeah...going once a week by bicycle has been an amazing way... to add in some extra exercise for myself. This day...Bran and I rode together. The bike closest my camera is Bran's bike and the red bike is mine. Both our bikes look brand new and that's just because they stay in the shed and have never rusted or been rained on or anything. And as soon as Noah went on Spring break we have been taking Noah with us too on our once a week bike rides to the local store too. Noah *loves* going with me and his brother. So he looks forward to our bike rides. We have gone 3 times so far. This is one side of the grocery store. And guess what's right in front of our one and only grocery store? A rice farming machine show room. LOL!!! Life in rural Japan for sure!

This was taken the first time we took Noah with us. And what's on this other side of our 1 and only grocery store in town? It's a rice field of course! Hahaha. You see concrete where my bike is with jasmine tea and whatnot in my bike basket, which that is the store on one side and then you see rice fields like literally direct smack dab right next to our one and only grocery store in town. Ahhh rural Japan, I love you so much! : ) So anyways...all the exercise...the treadmilling, the actual outside walking...the bike riding. I am feeling that my legs are tightening up. Feeling firmer. So...I'm getting there. Now to the food....

My dinner pic from 1 night. This is not a regular dinner plate size... this is actually a salad small plate size. This is 6 karaage. steamed broccoli and 50 grams of rice. The biggest part of my dinner was steamed veggies. The second biggest part of my meal was protein in the form of skinless chicken breast. Granted it was rolled in flour and fried. But...it's life and you can't just stay away from absolutely everything. It would be a miserable existence that way. However...all winter long I would have 10 karaage. And fwiw...my husband and Bran always have about 17 karaage each. And Noah has 12 karaage. So, I still never felt my 10 karaage was extreme-o or excessive or anything. However...I have cut my karaage down to 6 now. And my rice to 50 grams. I know carbs are the devil basically. And while I can stay away from rice no problem. Because I wasn't really raised with rice as a staple. I still miss bread, pasta and potatoes horribly!!! Like legit...one night I actually dreamed... that I was eating Costco dinner rolls. I woke up the next day...I knew I had like 3 ziplocs full of them in my freezer, but I resisted and ate none. But I mean...lol...to dream of bread? @_@ That's nuts. But it's also honest. So...no the less rice... doesn't bother me at all. But the less bread pasta and potatoes is still hard. But again...in moderation. I will let myself have carbs once a day. But it's best if I have none. 

This was my dinner last night. I made a gorgeous chicken veggie stir fry with curry powder. This is so good! The kids and husband had theirs with sides of white rice of course. And if it was me...in winter...I would have joined them with that side of white rice. However...I had an english muffin for breakfast yesterday (carbs) so I didn't allow myself to have any rice with supper last night and you know what...I didn't miss it at all. I enjoyed the veggies, the chicken...I enjoyed the flavor of this dish a whole lot. And I had a glass of jasmine tea (no sugar) on the side. And that was it. My lunch yesterday is pictured down below...

I had a bowl of corn. So yesterday for me, I had 1 Blendy 60 calories, and 1 english muffin for breakfast (I ran out of my yogurts, which I did repurchase this morning by bike ride) and for lunch I had corn... and for dinner I had a stir fry veggie and chicken thing. So...yes I am watching what I eat a lot. I am exercising.

It's now been almost 1 month going low carb. Do I honestly see a difference in my body...by cutting down so much on rice potatoes, pasta and bread? Honestly the difference I see in my body is huge. Branden told me the other day..."mom your stomach is *so* flat" I do admit, I also notice a flatter stomach, granted not that I was bad before....but just winter made me out of shape...also... my husband asked me last night, will you be wearing a bikini this summer and he was being completely serious. I notice...a body change...just with the cutting down greatly on carbs. I'm not starving myself. I'm eating lots of fresh or frozen veggies. I'm eating lean meats like chicken breast. I'm eating bananas. Celery with peanut butter. Yogurts. No sodas. Unless we go to a restaurant. But do I see a difference going low carb. Yes...biggest difference ever. And it's only been about a month. My waist is smaller, my stomach is flatter. And with walking and riding my bike, my legs are getting firmer.

But again...I'm not torturing myself. Like tonight...I'm going to make chicken parmesan on top of pasta. And we'll have garlic bread too. Granted my chicken size can stay the same, because it's protein... but my pasta I will be measuring the size of mine. And instead of 2 garlic breads, I'll have just 1. So anyway...that's the update on that...: ) You know how much I love pasta, bread and potatoes...so you have to know how hard I'm trying. How tough it is still for me. But...I'm doing it. And this summer when I'm at the pool...I will be strutting my stuff. : ) And yeah...knowing the hard work I put into it. I will *deserve* to strut my stuff a little bit.: ) 

A mountain bike for Noah...

Noah has outgrown his bicycle we bought for him in the first grade. Which is totally fine. He got 4 full years of usage from it. He rode his bright yellow bike every single week. He absolutely loved his bike. However, I noticed little things here and there. For example he had been slowly putting the seat up height wise... higher and higher until it was stretched as high as it could go. And it had started to even still look a little bit short. Example 2, I started to notice his group of 5th grade friends and classmates who would come to play with Noah.. started to get bigger/larger bikes. First 1 friend changed their bike, then I started seeing 2 and 3. And lately it seems by now about half of his friends have larger bikes. Half still don't. But yeah, just something I filed at the back of my mind.  Don't get me wrong, with 1 older kiddo, we most certainly have a spare bike for Noah, in the perfect bigger size. However, I hadn't had Noah make the switch because well...honestly? I wasn't sure Noah was big enough to handle the bigger framed bike. Lucky for me, I had taken a ton of pics when Branden made the bike switch and after checking out those pics to refresh my memory of what age Bran was....turns out...he was the same age Noah is now. I smiled when I realized Bran actually switched to a bigger larger bike in the 5th grade too. Same grade Noah is right now.  Branden isn't using that bike and actually gave it to Noah with his blessing! : ) So when I snapped the pics of my chili that day. That was the same day Noboru was doing some bicycle checks on the bright orange-ish yellow colored mountain bike that used to be Bran's... but is now Noah's!  Here is Noah eagerly awaiting his "new to him" bike.... passes daddy's bike inspection. : )  Wearing his Old Navy American flag 2016 shirt. GU shorts and his Asics sneakers with laces. His eyes were fixated on his new (to him) bike. : )

This bike is practically brand new. It's never been in the rain or got yucky and rusted by the harsh weather elements. It's shiny and new and mechanically sound. It's fantastic. It's a cool mountain bike. Noboru checked the chain, perfect he gave it the green light. He filled some air in the tires. 

Noboru and I stood out front, I was outside smiling thinking my baby...has crossed another milestone! He outgrew his bike from ichinensei and is now onto a bigger cooler bike. A mountain bike. Noboru was outside too but he was busy listening....listening to sounds of a quiet bike. And making sure there are no sounds of a bike in distress. Hahaha. He had Noah go back and forth and switch gears and stuff. And all was fine. The bike got the daddy seal of approval thumbs up and green light. : ) Noah's been using this one ever since. Now we'll have to figure out who we can give his smaller bike to. I'm sure we know someone who would like it or could use it. : ) 

Rainy season means hydrangea's are in season. I love them! So, glad there are 2 on our street. 

This new bigger mountain bike suits you Noah! So yep, Noah's made the switch about a week ago and he's been riding this a ton ever since! : )

Branden's bike for junior high school...

Buying a bike for Branden to use back and forth to the local junior high school. Most kids unless they live right near the junior high seem to ride a bike back and forth to Junior high where we live. We received a pamphlet/booklet from the junior high school back in January saying what was allowed as far as bikes go for our school. Each school might have different requirements as far as what they want in bikes, so of course check with your own school. Our school's main bike rule... said it could not have anything more than 3 gears. Meaning no 10 speeds, hahaha. Up to 3 speeds only for our school. Also another rule for our particular school was they wanted either the gears or bike chain partially covered. Something like that, I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was something. So with the phamplet we also found this website online from a nationwide chain bicycle shop. This online website helped narrow the bike search down based on the criteria of what we were looking for. The website is in Japanese, but my computer automatically translates Japanese websites into English so that's why the pics are in English, however it translating into English helped me understand what we were looking for, a whole lot better. Shifting,  do you want exterior or interior or a no speed. Click which one, so we did. 

Handles, do you want straight handles or bent. The little explanation in blue. Again it is a translation so not 100% totally perfect translation. And Noboru read it in Japanese. 

Again, what kind of kick stand do you want, again we clicked the one we wanted. 

Silver, black or white. Our school allows any color bike, however 90% of all bikes at Branden's junior high are all silver. The mother's and phamplet says it is because silver rusts less? @.@ Is this true, is it not? You know...I don't know. We put Branden's bike in a shed anyway, when it's at home, so rust wise, I think we're okay. Again, though all February and March we had a whole bunch of stuff to think about. : )

Do you want a carrier? Clearly yes! Because our school doesn't allow school bags in the front basket, so the bag must go here. 

Yes we want the basket, but when can he use it? Hahaha, since school bags aren't allowed in there. Well, we will see. I'll update about this, if I ever see anyone using their basket around here. Maybe he can use it for weekends, or I don't know. : )

Lights, do we pick an auto light or a dynamo light? An auto light automatically goes on and off which is cool, but the not cool thing is the battery will need changing. The dynamo light, lights up by the power of your kids legs, lol, so the good point is, no battery to change. Again, we clicked which one we wanted. 

Gee, the words in blue here were smooshed with the websites sidebar, but still understandable. After clicking all our choices all the bikes that best suited us popped out on another page. We printed that out and then we went to the bike shop. I also want to add here, Right around the time we went to Guam, so first week of March. Genki's mom told us to search for a bike called HR something or other. She said she thinks we should get that bike for Branden and she was thinking about getting it for Genki too. She also was bummed that it wasn't available when her daughter started junior high. So we did go online and checked out their website too. The bike looked wicked! However it is sold out... online everywhere. And not for sale online anymore, they were very limited edition...only a certain number of the bikes were to be sold. Anyway to the bike shop we went...in Narita city.

Hmm, this bike has a bigger than usual basket...

Junior high school bikes aren't cheap! The one on the left is about $299 US and the one on the right is about $250 US. This bike shop also sold some beautiful used junior high school bikes for about $150 US, that looked just as good as new! : )

This basket on this bike, that's almost $300 US is pretty small. Also, the website about the difference of features helped us a lot... before going to the bike shop. : )  

And then we saw it! The bike Genki's mom told us about and suggested we get, if we could track it down, they had 2 left with zero chance of getting anymore! We called her in the actual shop! She said they got theirs a day before at a different shop! Looking at their website, apparently a teacher said to his class.... anything you'd love to change and a group of kids said, "yeah the bikes they sell in Japan don't fit our needs." "The baskets are too small, the chains rust." They had a lot of things they disliked about the common Japanese bike that most students were required to buy, so the teacher challenged them... to make a proto-type bike of their dream bike...that fixes all the things that's wrong with typical bikes here in Japan. And so they did make a proto type and they collaborated with a major bike manufacturer and they only made a super tiny amount of them...not sure how many bikes nationwide, but for example let's just say 2,000 sold Japan wide. There could be a bit more but their website said very limited numbers. Anyway this is THAT bike! And the one we bought for Branden. About $350 US.

Has a tiny mesh basket inside a bigger mesh basket. Smart that the kids thought of this. 

Apparently the kids of today... prefer the dynamo light, the peddle it yourself, to turn on the light. a very nice and big bright one too, I might add.

The back carrier is *really big* compared to the normal average typical bike. Also the kids wanted it 1 solid metal piece. Again a student knows what's wrong with a bike, after using it for a few years. Apparently that group of kids all agreed. This carrier is long enough to hold Branden's large size sports bag on the back no problem, so this back carrier is the perfect size!

You can see here, how teeny tiny a normal back carrier is and look again at the one on Branden and Genki's bike. 

And again, there were way way more expensive junior high school approved type bikes, say this one for over $600 US @.@. That bike directly next to it with the 34,980 price tag is the exact one, we picked for Branden and put into the mini mini van...and took back to our town that very day! And it did have the bent handle bars like we wanted, versus the straight handle bar and the basket is ginormous, this was the biggest basket in the whole section, lol, but very useful. 

It has a belt versus a chain. You know, I think this group of kids who made this bike made an absolutely wicked bike! We just couldn't find a better bike and we did do a lot of research online beforehand too. 

The bike shop was packed with so many parents and new junior high school students, we ran into 1 family from our town at the bike shop too! We did walk around really well though to double make sure we found THE bike. And when we were sure, Noboru went and bought it. Registered it to Branden, filled out all the paperwork. They put some "slime" in his tires as a service, also serviced the bike before we left. 

His bike being serviced before we left. 

There are only 2 of these bikes at the local junior high school. Genki's and Branden's. Branden enjoys riding his bike to school back and forth. It's good exercise. He meets a group of his friends at the tennis courts at a set time and they ride to school together every morning. He rides down the country roads and past many rice fields along the way to school. 

All his friends have name stickers on their bikes and so does Branden. Awww. : )

I wish, I could tell you, that when your child hits the 7th grade you stop worrying, but the truth is, you don't! You worry just as much. : )  A-chan who is in the 9th grade, this year, who lives across the street anyway, her mom walks her out every morning and makes sure her bag is safely bungeed. And now...the boy next door (fellow 7th grader) and his mom do the same and Branden and I do the same, Monday through Friday. Everyone seems to have black bungee cords. Ours are bright orange (we had them beforehand, so didn't plan it on purpose or anything) and the bright side is...he'll always know... those are his and easy to find! : ) Plus they came from Home Depot and the tag is in English and says Home Depot, lol, so he'll really know those are his (but I did write his name on the tag anyway). Hahaha. : ) I help make sure his bag is on safely and tightly each morning. And I stand there for just 30 seconds-1 minute until he rides his bike down the foot/bike path.

Be safe kiddo, and we'll be waiting for your safe return every day after school! You are doing it Branden and we are so proud of you kiddo! : ) 

New bike

Branden has outgrown his bike. He hasn't received a new bike since the first grade! @_@ All his friends bikes have been replaced and they've been riding bigger ones. And finally I said to Noboru, you know we should replace it. When I mentioned it, then Noboru started taking notice of all Branden's friends bikes. He was surprised. He said, you're right, Branden's bike is the smallest. We must do something about it. So, for the past 2 weeks we've been looking for a new bike for Branden. We did drive to Toys R us. Unfortunately bikes in the size we needed, 26, we're slim pickings. So we headed to Aeon, again in that particular size maybe 2 choices were there. So we searched online. All of his friends think mountain bikes are cool. Branden thinks so also. So, we found Branden this mountain bike.

In a bright orange-y yellowish color. It has 18 gears and for boys they want lots of gears. All his friends have 7 or 8 gears so Branden was thrilled we found him one with 18 gears.

Noboru was happy he found Branden a bike with Shimano transmission.

Front and rear suspension. Branden's last bike didn't have this.

Branden's over the moon. And he's been using it since last week when he goes and plays with his friends. I did tell Branden, be conservative, don't go telling everyone about it or anything. And he is very conservative. A few of his friends from the neighborhood know because they saw him ride it and then they asked and Branden just said yes. And they're all really happy for Branden because they know he's been waiting for a long time for it. : ) And the price of the bike. It wasn't too expensive. They have this at Amazon.jp for 16,000 yen or something like that with free shipping, but Noboru actually found it cheaper and I think he got it for 14,000 yen from some other place online and with free shipping also. And Noah.....he still has his yellow bike he got from Santa (ahem)  and he also inherited Branden's old bike...and so he thinks he's Mr. Cool now because he says..."I have 2 bikes" Bless his heart. He doesn't mind used at all. : ) He's a good kiddo too. So he always keeps it positive.

And what are Branden and Noah doing this fine Saturday? Well, we did have our family breakfast today as usual. But also, Yuki called our house first thing this morning, he had his mom drop him off. And Branden, Noah and Yuki are now off down the rice field catching zarigani as I type. And after that they're going to be riding bikes.

Pizza Hut just opened in Narita about 2 weeks ago. Which that's pretty big news for us way here in the inaka. It's still too far for delivery because we don't live *that* close to Narita, to be included in the delivery area, lol. But we'll go and pick it up. Anyway, that's tonight's dinner plan... we will go and get some pizza from Pizza Hut and bring it home and have family movie night.

Ahh, the kids (Branden, Noah and Yuki) just came in the house for a pineapple popsicle, so I better go. ; )

These are so freaking good btw! : )