One of my friends from work is an amazing cook, which is not surprising since she is one of the chefs lol I often ask her cooking advice and I know I provide her with a lot of amusement because of how dumb I am when it comes to food and cooking and well, anything kitchen related lol
The other day I was stopping by her place after aquafit class to pick up an empty tin can (it’s for a craft project but I don’t buy food in cans so I didn’t have one) and when I got there she invited me in to hang out. I think she worries I don’t eat enough, or eat enough “real” food (she seems to think a spoonful of peanut butter doesn’t count as a meal, weirdo! 😉 lol ) because she kept offering me food. In the end I got fed dinner, which was nice cause I wouldn’t have eaten anything once I got home due to lack of food and money to buy food lol, she heated up some minestrone soup and made me some toast, isn’t she so nice? 🙂
Then, on my way out she gives me a huge container with food in it, she made me dinner to take home so I’d have food over the next couple days! Crazy levels of nice or what?!
The food this morning before I warmed it up.
Doesn’t it look delish? It’s chicken with some sort of parmesan topping, steamed broccoli and rice with carrots and peas mixed in. I think there is something else mixed in to the rice but I’m not sure what…whatever it is, it’s tasty!
I was so worried about warming it up, do I microwave it or put it in the oven or go stove top? Too many options, ack! I felt sure whichever way I chose would be the wrong way and I’d somehow screw up the food lol
Eventually I decided to warm it up in a pan, seemed safest, and I remember my mom warming up leftovers in a pan on the stove and if that’s what she does than it must be right, right? Right!
I put the chicken in first and then sliced it up to ensure it was warm all the way through, when it was close to being done I added in the rice and the broccoli since even I know those wouldn’t take as long as the chicken lol The parmesan topping ended up breaking in to smaller pieces so some of it got a tad burned but for the most part it was ok.
Heated up and on a plate, Mmm!
So there we have it, the final product! It was super tasty and I sent her a text thanking her for about the billionth time for the food lol I can’t wait to eat it again tomorrow! 🙂
I know a lot of people who get all “omg keep the halloween candy away from me! danger! danger! ack!” but it doesn’t have to be like that, honest! 🙂
Unless you have the most amazing willpower ever you will, at some point, have a treat. There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as you aren’t over indulging and in general are eating in a healthy manor, treats can be your friend. If you don’t feel deprived, or like you aren’t allowed anything treat like, you’ll be less likely to ditch the diet or healthy eating plan (or whatever you want to call it) so that you can plow your way through a cake or a tub of ice cream.
The trick is to find ways to give yourself little treats that don’t completely derail your eating plan. There are lots of ways to do this! Think of small, portion packaged treats. 🙂
Weight Watchers makes all sorts of portion packaged treats, from chocolates to mini cakes to ice cream to, well, almost anything. I used to buy these…
So yummy. So hard to find.
They are by Whitman’s and it says right on the bag how many points per chocolate, within the bag each chocolate is individually wrapped so you don’t have to worry about the chocolates going stale if you don’t eat them quickly. They have a wide variety of flavours (as you can see from the above picture) and they are goooooood. Mmm! However, they are hard to find, at least where I live, sigh. There are a lot of Weight Watchers foods out there, but most of them are not in Canada. Why? I’m going with the world is a cruel place. 😉 lol Really, I have no idea why every other country seems to have a wider variety of Weight Watcher’s foods in the stores than mine. When I would come across these I would stock up because there was no telling how long it would be before I would find them again.
Another option are these cute little mini ice creams. Ben & Jerry’s, Haagen-Daz and even Magnum all do mini sizes. I haven’t tried any of them because I have never seen them in stores. There is however a mini ice cream I have tried and really liked. It is by Nestle and looks like…
Most of the flavours shown in that picture have not been in the stores when I’ve seen the Nestle ice creams lol and I can’t recall right now which of the flavours I have tried but they were good, and the perfect size. I would lean towards trying the ice creams that don’t have smarties or oreos or rolo etc in them as the added candy will just make it that much worse for you lol the ones I’ve eaten were more traditional flavoured ice creams.
Something I discovered at my friend’s place was a Costco find. I absolutely love the Brookside chocolate covered fruit, well, let’s be honest here, “fruit” pieces lol But whatever, they are so good! I have tried the pomegranate and the acai berry.
Only problem is they come in a fairly large bag and if you have problems with mindless eating, or aren’t good at portioning your food, or just kinda go over board, you could very easily eat waaaaaay too many of them. Well, my friend was at Costco and discovered Brookside sells their chocolate covered “fruit” in packages sized to put in lunch boxes. So you can grab one small package and have yourself a little treat while watching tv, or sneak it in to a movie theatre or have it as a snack at work.
I could go on with all these awesome mini food finds that are available year round but the point I am wanting to get to is this. Halloween candy is mini. It is perfect. If you are someone who likes chocolate bars, or tootsie rolls, or really, almost any type of candy, halloween can so be your friend. Think about it. Instead of indulging in a full sized Twix bar you can eat a mini one from the halloween candy stash, get the same yummy taste and enjoyment as the full sized bar but none of the guilt and nowhere near the same amount of calories. I know for a fact halloween candy can last an entire year. I don’t mean because of rationing it, I mean it will still be ok to eat in a year…which if you think about it, is kinda freaky…anything that lasts that long is unnatural, but hey, like that’s gonna stop any of us from occasionally eating it? Ha! 😛
So why not wait until the day after halloween, buy a big ol box of discounted halloween candy and use it throughout the year as your treat to yourself every now and then? When you really want that Kit-Kat, or Skittles or some other candy you can easily grab a mini version, enjoy, and not have any worries afterwards…just make sure to not eat it all at once! 😉
Today was a Subway kind of day. Actually, I didn’t want food, all I wanted was the fountain diet coke but I figured that the pop alone didn’t qualify as lunch sooooo I got a sub also.
Because I forgot to take a picture of the sub before I ate it…all I have is a picture of the logo lol
I went with my standard option, a 6 inch turkey sub on 9-grain wheat bread, with white cheese, toasted, loaded with veggies and topped with mustard and light mayo. It may seem boring but I really like it – and not in a it’s-a-healthy-choice-so-I’ll-eat-it kind of like it but I legit like it. 🙂 I love that you can have avocado, I thought it was supposed to be a limited time offer but it’s been around for ages and doesn’t seem to be getting phased out, maybe it’s so popular they realized they should keep it? shrug. I dunno, I’m just happy it’s a choice.
My sub is more veggie than meat lol I get spinach, avocado, tomato, cucumber, green pepper, red onion, black olives and banana peppers. Mmm! Don’t you love how many different colours veggies come in? My sub always look so purdy 😉 lol
I still remember by heart how many Weight Watcher’s points my sub is but now I’m counting calories and those I do not have memorized. I checked out the Subway website this evening to find the calories and discovered they updated it quite a bit since I last took a look and holy cow, amazing website!!
You pull up a chart that has all their items listed, just like every other nutritional information chart you find on restaurant’s websites but! this one is different! You click on the item you ate and it takes you to a new page where it explains the nutritional information you are seeing is if your sub was on white or wheat bread and had no condiments. But c’mon, who doesn’t put some sort of condiment on there, right? So then you click on a button that says “Calculate Yours” and boom! you get this amazing page that has all the options listed, you can say exactly which vegetables you had, which cheese, which condiments and as you pick and choose what you had on your sub the nutritional information that is showing on the side of the page updates itself.
Seriously, best. nutritional. website. EVER!
Turns out my sub with all it’s modifications is 440 calories – good to know! )
As I was googling for a picture of the Subway logo I came across a Subway scandal! *shocked face* Turns out people have been measuring their subs and they are shorter than they are supposed to be, the footlong is coming in at 11″ which makes me wish I’d measured mine before eating it lol Next time! 😛
If you want to check out the Subway nutritional information page click here.
I met a friend for coffee today which turned in to lunch at White Spot which turned in to my first meal that I can’t properly track because I didn’t cook it at home. Erg.
I knew this was bound to happen but why-oh-why did it have to happen so soon? *pout* I’m weird in that if I am tracking I want to be able to track perfectly for every single thing I eat, if something happens and I can’t track a meal then I feel “what is the point” and I usually quit. It’s stupid, I know. It’s just that if I’m doing something, I want to do it right, shrug.
So for the rest of the day I didn’t know what to do. Should I eat? Should I assume my meal was all my calories for the day and my punishment for eating something I shouldn’t have is that I don’t eat again today? What do I dooooooo?
Well, duh, I went online and went hunting for the nutritional information lol Gotta love the internet!
At first I couldn’t find what I needed, the salad is new and I wasn’t seeing it on any of the nutritional information charts that White Spot has online…granted I was searching while at work so I couldn’t fully dedicate my focus to my sleuthing lol When I got home I was all ready to admit defeat for tracking my food today but I decided to give it another go and boom! Found it! *happy dance* Actually, more like horrified gasp…
I am not so dumb that I don’t know that restaurant salads are not always healthy, that in fact, they can be hiding a huuuuuge amount of calories, fat etc and you might just be better off buying a chicken burger or sandwich or some other dish, that knowledge didn’t stop me from buying a salad though…and no, it wasn’t one of the salads marked as a healthy choice, it was a new salad that sounded tasty…I let my desire for something tasty dictate my food choice and I am now kicking myself for that. Kicking hard!
The salad that I ate (ate every single bite of I might add) is the Candied Salmon Spinach Salad. I know, I know, the word “candied” is a dead give away, sigh. I somehow thought the spinach and salmon in the salad would counteract the candied part and the dressing…obviously it did not.
Here, this is the salad description, how can a girl resist the sound of this salad?
Candied salmon, fresh strawberries, gingered pecans, red onion & Okanagan goat cheese on spinach dressed with our champagne vinaigrette. With garlic panini bread.
And yeah, I ate the bread too…
After my second round of internet searching I learned that my lunch was 868 calories! Broken down that is 682 calories for the salad and 186 for the garlic bread.
Yes, I do know I could have saved calories by getting the dressing on the side but I didn’t so no point in lecturing me about it now. 😛
Here comes the second problem with food…when I was at work I had to decide if I should eat dinner or not. I decided I should, cause if I skip eating that’ll mess with my metabolism, right? Right. So, I ate dinner.
Dinner at work today was salmon (not candied!), with squash and other veggies on top of couscous. Soooo, healthy? I dunno, shrug. The salmon didn’t have a sauce or anything, so I’m leaning towards that part being healthy, and the veggies were probably ok too, but what about couscous?
After some hunting online I came up with approximate numbers for dinner, 88 calories for the couscous, 82 calories for the veggies and 354 calories for the salmon. The calories for the salmon pains me, pains! That’s a total count of 524 which puts me at a total of 1392 for the day.
I can’t decide how I feel about that number. *confused face*
My first two days tracking my calories I wanted to be under 1200 calories a day, the second day I went over a bit and ate 1263, but I thought that wasn’t sooooo bad. After lunch today I was all ready to be super pissed off at myself but I was talking to a friend at work who is a personal trainer and she said I should not be eating under 1200 calories a day, that is too few calories and I’ll put myself in to starvation mode. I’m still not sure exactly how many calories I should be eating, but if I am aiming for 1200 now, then 1392 isn’t so much over that I can’t recover from it, right?…Riiiiiight…ok, so maybe I am trying to make myself feel better and I could be way off, I dunno, sigh.
What sucks is that it is now almost midnight and I am hungry *pout* Looks like my two high calorie meals today didn’t keep me full, nor did all the drinks I had which no, I don’t mean alcoholic drinks but diet coke, water and tea.
So yeah, that is how my third day went, ordering ridiculously bad for me food and ending up being hungry at the end of the day. I want a cookie *pout* 😉
I started my day with a measuring tape and my almost naked body, lovely image that! lol 😉 Ugh. I even attempted to weigh myself but my scale appears to be dead.
My scale is digital, before you step on it you are supposed to lightly tap the top of it with your foot so that it flashes three zeros then, once it shows a steady 0.0lbs you fully step on it to get weighed. Well, my scale seems to have forgotten it is supposed to start at 0.0lbs so every time I tapped the top and it reset itself it set to a weight, which I would have deducted from whatever number showed on the scale when I stepped on it but the number was different each time and frankly, it left me not trusting the scale. I took this as a sign I should stick with my measurements for tracking lol
Though, the measurements are confusing me also, sigh. I measured myself at the beginning of September so when I measured myself today I of course compared the numbers to those from Sept 1st and they had changed. All but one of the numbers had gone down (one of them stayed the same), which is awesome, but I don’t think realistic. No way I’ve gone down by at least an inch in every spot I measure, not in a month, especially a month where I haven’t been doing a good job of exercising.
I’ve been working really hard since coming back from vacation in July to eat three meals a day instead of the one or one and a half I normally eat, and for the most part I’ve been trying really hard to eat in a healthy balanced way. I wasn’t tracking calories or anything, I was just trying to make better choices in general, so protein and veg and fruit with smaller than what I used to eat amounts of carbs. Nothing really impressive about that eating plan, and nothing that would create a large change, right? *confused face*
So why are the numbers down? For my arms I think it is because dragon boat training season is over, has been for a while now, and that means my arms are being worked a bit less, well, a lot less lol. Even though dragon boating is mostly core, back and shoulders, the arms do get worked, I figure the lack of practices has taken away some of my arm muscle, hence my arms getting a bit smaller. As for the rest of the numbers, I guess I messed up somewhere. I double and even triple measured myself today because I was so shocked the numbers were different from last month so I guess I messed up when I measured in September.
In case you’re wondering, the different areas that I measure are:
– mid upper arm
– just under the breast
– belly button
– lower than the belly button at the fattest part of my tummy
– hips
– fattest part of my thigh
– mid calf
I measure both the left and the right side, mostly because my left and right legs are different sizes due to an old injury, but it is something I recommend for everyone, after all, if your feet can be slightly different sizes who says your limbs can’t be?
There are a lot of measurement tracking pages you can find online, none of which I liked (of course lol) so I made my own but I don’t use it, instead I draw a stick figure and make marks on the stick figure labeling what I am measuring and what the measurements are. I don’t know why I prefer using the stick figure drawing with measurements marked on it but, shrug, I do. I’m visual like that I guess. I am going to start transferring the measurements to the tracking sheet I made though for quick reference.
I ended up not taking pictures of myself like I had planned. I have one full length mirror and that is in my bedroom, by the time I woke up there were construction guys working on the house next door so there was this constant parade of guys walking past my bedroom window. Now sure, you’re probably thinking, why didn’t I close the blinds? Well, they were as closed as they can be but thanks to a certain cat who has climbed through the blinds so often they have been permanently disfigured there is no such thing as having actual privacy in my room anymore, the blinds are always open at least a bit…just enough to make me uncomfie standing around in my underwear and bra, taking pics of myself, while guy after guy walk past my window. I know, I’m so high maintenance! lol So I’m thinking Saturday morning should be safe, I mean, construction guys won’t be working on a Saturday, right? It’s a bit annoying my measurements and my pictures won’t be done on the same day but 4 days difference won’t matter, nothing will have changed in that amount of time, shrug.
he looks innocent but he killed my blinds. Blind killer!
I managed to track every single thing I ate today, yay! I ended up eating 1140 calories, I’m not sure if that is good or bad since I haven’t done the calculations that will tell me how many calories I should be eating, oops! Also, I did nooooo exercise, nadda, niet, nine, NONE! Talk about a lazy day!
All in all, I think my New Day One went well, I didn’t cheat with my food even though I was sooooo tempted, I tracked everything I ate, I got my measurements done…*nods head* yup, a good new Day One. 🙂
Ah yes, it’s that time of year again, that one day in the year where we show our Canadian pride by waving flags, wearing red and white and watching fireworks. How is watching fireworks patriotic? I have no idea, it’s just somehow become associated with Canada Day, shrug. They aren’t even red and white fireworks, or shaped like a maple leaf or sponsored by Tim Horton’s so really, how patriotic can they be? 😉
That’s one big flag!
I had planned to go hiking today, get out there, enjoy the beautiful summer weather, be one with nature an all that but I am still coughing (been coughing for over a week now, lame!) and oddly enough I had no desire to have a huge coughing fit in the middle of some trail on the side of a mountain, I know, I’m so weird *rolls eyes*. Instead I slept in, cuddled with the cat, read a bit, watched some tv and then went to go hang with KL.
The first part of my day may seem lame, although I enjoy staying at home doing whatever but just so you don’t think I’m a hermit or anything I’ll tell you about the social part of my day. 🙂
KL and I made dinner at her place, I love her place, it’s so cute! I had this brilliant idea that we should do burgers and some sort of side dish, maybe even bbq it…it seemed like the perfect summer dinner idea. However, the lack of a bbq was an issue, though not as large of an issue as you might expect since I’ve never actually cooked on one and would probably have killed the burger patties lol Instead we cooked them in a frying pan, well technically I cooked them, yup, that’s right, I cooked. Me. The one who sucks at cooking actually cooked. Oh and get this, not only did I cook the burgers I also made them, from scratch! Anybody fall down from the shock of reading that? Oh wait, you’re already seated cause you’re reading my blog so phew, you are all safe! 😉
It is a dead easy burger recipe but one I very much enjoy. Each patty is 4oz of lean ground turkey meat, 2 tblsp salsa, 2 tblsp diced red onion. That’s it. No, I’m not kidding, that really is all you need. The amount of turkey I bought was enough to make three patties so I just tripled the amount of salsa and red onion and voila! I had these…
home made turkey burgers
Three oh-so-lovely but omg-icky-I-touched-raw-meat turkey burgers. The salsa adds flavour and moisture, the red onion helps the patties to bind. Once cooked the burger is moist and yummy. You have to be careful to not overcook them, after they have been flipped you can tell when you need to stop cooking them because a bunch of moisture starts releasing in to the pan, seriously, it is like the burgers are leaking or something, it’s weird lol, take em off the heat then and they will be perfect-o! 🙂
Normally I eat them with the normal everyday burger toppings but I had an inspired idea (don’t ya love how I’m tooting my own horn over here? lol 😉 ) and topped them with goat cheese and diced jalapenos. Mmm! Mmm! Mmm! Well, if you like goat cheese and jalapenos it’s a good idea lol We also used the more normal toppings, garlic mayo, ketchup, relish, mustard, lettuce, sauteed mushrooms and sliced tomato. The burgers were messy, as a good burger should be, but really tasty. KL, who is an amazing cook, really liked them so yay! I cooked something, for someone else and not only did I not food poison us or screw up the recipe but they really liked it! *happy dance*
KL’s contribution was a super delish salad! It had, hmm, lemme see if I can remember, spinach, apple, blackberries, poppyseed, home made dressing, sunflower seeds um, shoot…I can’t remember the rest. Oh, and so you don’t skip over what I wrote there, she made the dressing, from scratch! I’ve never even thought of doing that and she did it amazingly well! After her hard work the end result looked like…
KL’s amazing salad
Look at that! Not only delish but beautiful too. That picture is before the home made dressing was put on – in case you were wondering lol
So the end result of dinner looked like…
A tasty dinner. 🙂
Not only tasty, and pleasing to the eye buuuuut healthy too! Yay! 😀 Always nice when you can make a healthy dinner also taste good lol
After dinner we went to watch the fireworks. There was a live concert and during the earlier part of the day there had been all kinds of things going on but being the people that we are we waited to go until later in the night so we could avoid all the little kids and families lol. The band we were near was actually really good, they were doing covers of all different sorts of music, people in the crowd were dancing, the band was funny between songs, overall a good choice by whomever picked them.
The fireworks show lasted a half hour, started at 10:30pm. It was kinda funny, KL and I had a great seat, on a log on the beach, it was still warm, you could hear (and see) the water lapping up against the sand, see people standing on the pier to our right, see the bridge to our left, it was really quite a beautiful night. So, this great atmosphere is happening and right on time to our left the fireworks start, then boom! To our right more fireworks start. Turns out we were between two different fireworks displays so everyone for the first little bit was turning their heads quickly from side to side trying to watch both shows and not miss anything – the crowd must have looked like one of those cat videos on youtube…
After about five minutes or so, yes, it took that long! the realization dawned that both shows are identical, yup, identical. So really you only had to pick which one you wanted to look at, or really, which direction was most comfortable for your neck, and you were set. The fireworks were pretty, and I would show you pictures but all my pictures of them suck, they either look like this…
that little red blob is what was actually a big beautiful firework, I swear!
or this…
again, looked waaaay better in real life, honest!
I don’t know why my pictures of fireworks never work, sigh, guess you’ll have to take my word they were good but you can do that, right? 😉
After the fireworks I came home and watched the movie Crazy Stupid Love and am now crushing a bit on Ryan Gosling. He looked yummier than my dinner lol 😉
I didn’t think I was that person who lost weight, then gained it back. After all, I’m nowhere near the size I was at the beginning of my weight loss journey buuuut…I’m also not the smallest I have been on this journey.
I haven’t wanted to admit this to myself, let alone to anyone else, but it is time I faced the truth…I rebounded a bit. Does this mean I am now a yo-yo dieter? I dunno. Does it mean I am doomed to gain back all the weight I lost? I dunno. Does this mean I am destined to gain and lose and gain and lose for the rest of my life? I don’t know that either…sigh.
Seems there is a lot I don’t know.
I know that I have to get back on track, but I feel lost and not sure how to do that. I keep thinking I am not going to go back to Weight Watchers because I plateaued so badly on that program. Don’t get me wrong, I am super grateful for Weight Watchers, I lost 35 pounds with them, I learned about proper portion sizes with them, I learned I can happily swap out junk food for fresh fruit and enjoy healthy eating but I also feel there are limitations to that program and that I outgrew it. I don’t feel like going back to Weight Watchers is the right choice for me but that doesn’t mean that I know what the right choice for me is.
I also know I am not good at extreme programs. I can only maintain eating paleo, or the bodybeach program, or super restrictive low calorie eating plans for so long before I cave. Even if I like the food and am getting good portion sizes it is more about all the foods I am not allowed to eat. Knowing that on an extreme program having even one spoonful of peanut butter could be considered cheating messes with me. I need a bit of wiggle room, space so I don’t get all down on myself when I step outside of the food rules that I am following.
I need something realistic, and affordable!
My scale has been tucked away for over a year and I am scared to pull it back out, I am scared to see what the number will be when I step on it. I’d rather be back in boxing class getting hit during sparring than stand on that scale again. How pathetic is that?? I originally put it away because I was building muscle and the scale number was no longer an accurate way to measure my progress. It was sloooowly going up as I was getting more trim and it was messing with my head. For so long I relied solely on the number it gave me every week to know if I was doing well and to see it go up, even though I knew it was because of muscle gain, made me feel like a failure. I started gauging my success/failure by other means, how my clothes fit, what size I could now buy, every now and then I would check my size with a measuring tape. For a while these methods of tracking worked but then they didn’t work so well anymore and I was left with no solid way to hold myself accountable.
I’m thinking that is around the time I started to slowly go up in size. For a while it was easy to ignore, my clothes still fit, just maybe a bit tighter, I could still reach the same levels at the gym, even though I wasn’t at the gym as often, I was eating roughly the same amount calorie wise but the calories were coming from more processed foods than fresh healthy foods. The pounds snuck up on me and now I have to face reality that I have gone up an entire size, so that’s what, ten pounds? That’s depressing. All that work I did to lose weight and I have gone and gained some of it back. What was I thinking?!
What’s twisted is that even with the weight gain I am more active then before, just in different ways. Instead of going to the gym daily I will swap out gym visits for a hike, or a run or my dragon boat practice. I am still active just not in a regimented gym equipment kind of way, and I guess the activities I am doing now aren’t as good for weight loss or weight maintenance as following a gym program is. Kinda sucks cause I enjoy the hikes an such but if I have to choose between enjoying the activity and getting results from the activity I will choose results every time…well, except for dragon boating, I will always choose dragon boating lol.
I don’t want to be writing this, I don’t want to be that person that gained weight back. But ya know, I follow a lot of other blogs that deal with weight loss, healthy lifestyles etc and I’ve noticed over the years I don’t seem to be the only one this happens to. It seems a lot of people, before they reach their goal weight have a slip up and gain some of the weight back. Most take a while to admit it to themselves and the longer you take to admit it the more weight you have gained back. I know with me part of it was the way I was thinking about food, I started getting cocky, thinking I didn’t have to be as strict cause I’d lost so much, I could let down my guard a bit. Well, proved that idea wrong! I let down my guard and look what happened! 😛
Even though I’m feeling down because I am facing the truth about my weight gain I am glad I am facing this truth now rather than a couple more months down the road when I will have possibly gained back even more weight.
I don’t have a solution for this, I wish I was concluding this post with some great awesome plan that would get me back on track but I don’t have one…yet! For now I am going to aim to get a new battery for my scale (mine died) and I plan to stand on that scale Tuesday morning. I also have a 4 week eating plan that I am going to research a bit more, see if it is doable on my budget, and I am going to schedule exercise into my days instead of leaving it as an up-in-the-air thing that happens more sporadically then it should. Hopefully I can get myself back on track within 5 days or so and huh, look at that, I may not have a solution yet but it seems like I actually do have a bit of a plan, at least a plan in the making…I’ll cross my fingers it works!…Uh, anybody wanna step on that scale for me? 😉 lol
I’ve got a pair of pants that when I bought them I thought they fit but once I got them home and wore them out for the first time I realized they were actually a bit too big. The crotch (I hate that word! lol) was too low so it rubbed against the inside of my thighs causing pain and raw skin…too much info? only happens to me? Yeah, sigh, figures… 😉 lol
Anyways! I put the pants in the dryer, a calculated risk, that I hoped would prove to be a smart idea. It did, sorta. The pants, after a couple runs through the dryer fit better around the waist, butt, hips and leg areas. They were a tad shorter than I like but not so much shorter I can’t still wear them with a variety of shoes. Phew! My legs are so long I hang to dry all pants because they can very quickly become too short and I look like that person who is expecting a flood 24/7 lol 😛
So today for work I wore the pants. I was maaaaaybe an hour in to my shift and every time I was standing or walking I was also pulling the pants up a bit and wishing I’d worn a belt. They were fitting looser in all areas but of course were still the tad too short they had been since the dryer stints.
I don’t know if this means I have lost a little bit of weight (please oh please mean I have lost some weight! *crosses fingers*) or if it means my pants have stretched out a bit or didn’t shrink quite as much as I realized. Obviously I’m hoping I got smaller not that my pants got bigger.
I seem to appear to be back in the middle ground of clothing sizes. I hate the middle ground. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, it is that stage where you are becoming too small for one size but are still too big for the next size down so your clothes don’t fit nicely no matter what you wear. It sucks even if it is an indication you’re on the right track.
this goes for all clothes
Thing is, I can’t think of anything that would have made me slim down a bit so I’m leaning towards the pants stretching out, which sucks.
I’ve been working on making small changes with my food, cutting out the processed foods I’d been enjoying during my off season, drinking more water, making sure to get protein in at every meal (well, ok, almost every meal, this is me after all lol), and, the big one, I’m eating less peanut butter! Shocking I know! I mean c’mon, I am the person who happily eats a couple spoonfuls of peanut butter and considers it a meal lol But yeah, small changes to my eating, nothing major, nothing to warrant slimming down enough to make pants fit looser.
One happy bonus to the pants fitting loosely this evening was it made it easier to resist bad-for-me-foods cause I kept thinking “if I have lost some weight I don’t wanna gain it back by making a stupid food choice” lol Oh the things I use for increasing my willpower! 😛
I have noticed lately that I am finding it easier to resist the foods that usually have me caving. Weird huh? Weird but awesome! If I walk through the bakery section at the grocery store I may glance at all the bakery items I usually drool over but I don’t pause and I definitely don’t buy. I contemplated pizza earlier in the week but easily managed to not order it. I’m finding it easier to not eat the foods at work.
I’m not sure where this increase in willpower has come from but I like it! 🙂 Maybe it’s because it’s dragon boat season again and I want to be in peak condition for practices and for the upcoming race season. Maybe it’s because I am “training” for the BMO Run and keep having horrifying images of a fat me being the last to cross the finish line at the run. Maybe it’s because I have had two auditions in the past two weeks (hoorah!) and want to look better and better for each upcoming audition. That and obviously the more confident I feel about how I look the less I will worry about it when in front of the camera meaning the more I can focus on my acting…and the more I will look “right” according to casting directors.
It’s probably some combination of all these things and more, who knows what is lurking in my sub-conscious? lol 😉
Whatever it is, I am glad for it. Glad to be that person who easily walks past all the high calorie, processed, so tasty but so bad for me foods and buys the healthy stuff. Glad to be getting back to the way I used to be. Glad that this juuuuust might be the first step towards a healthier, stronger, slimmer me. *crosses fingers*
I read a lot. For the most part I read whatever I think looks interesting, which, given my innate curiosity is pretty much everything lol. Something I read a fair amount of are articles, books, studies etc on eating healthy, fitness, getting in shape, losing weight…anything that somehow relates to leading a healthier lifestyle.
I read all these articles, books and studies for a couple reasons. One is because deep down I am still hoping for some sort of miracle-super-easy-quick-fix to my fat problem. Hey, if I can find something that can actually legit get me in shape faster than what I am doing now sign me up! Also, I read these various pieces for information, to learn what is best for my body, what I might be doing that is actually causing harm, tips and tricks, ideas…things like that. There is no way any one person can know everything about a topic, definitely no way I know everything about getting fit, so why not keep reading everything you can get your hands on? Keep learning, keep expanding your ideas, keep opening your mind to suggestions, keep trying new things…what could it possibly hurt?
So the other day I am reading an article titled: 8 Clever Tips For The Body You Want. If you read enough of these articles you’ll find they mostly all say the same things. Apparently there aren’t that many easy suggestions to pass along *rolls eyes* but one of the suggestions in this article caught my eye, caught it enough I took a screenshot of it so I would be able to reference it later.
my screenshot
The gist of this tip is, ready for it? Dun-dun-dunnnnn…eat the same things daily. Repeat the same exercises over an over. Basically bore yourself to tears by doing the same things over and over again. Apparently, “in one study, less food variety was associated with successful weight loss maintenance” and according to Dr. Oz (yeah, that guy from tv) “research is showing that putting a cap on the variety of foods and tastes you experience will help you control your weight. Find a healthy lunch you like – salad with grilled chicken and olive oil…and have it every day…”
Every.Day.
Basically bore your taste buds into submission. Oh and doing the same workout over and over? Suuuuure, I mean it’s not like you have to worry about your body getting minimal benefit from an oft repeated workout because our bodies are smart and quickly figure out how to get through a workout routine they recognize by doing the least amount of work….oh wait, yes we do have to worry about that! *rolls eyes*
Seriously Dr. Oz? Seriously??
I don’t know who came up with this particular article, I didn’t screenshot that part, oops! But I am baffled by this tip.
How is a person going to learn how to live a healthier lifestyle if their main way of eating is to eat the same thing everyday? All you’re doing is finding a couple healthy meals and hitting the repeat button every time you enter the kitchen. Sure, that may work for a little while, but what happens when that person goes to a potluck? To a restaurant? To a birthday party? To a work function where there is food? Basically, any social situation where you do not get to pick the exact meal put on your plate? How does someone navigate these food danger hot spots? If I only eat salad with grilled chicken for lunch and then my work puts on a lunch function and there are soooooo many tables of super tasty foods in front of me, how have I picked up the skills needed to help me (1) make a healthy food choice using the foods available to me and (2) resist all the super tasty but bad for me foods that are there?
Maybe it is just me but if I was eating the same thing day after day then was put in a situation ( like the work lunch function, or a potluck at a friends place etc) I’d cave faster than a dog that smells steak and basically eat whatever looked tasty. For me, if I deprive myself of the majority of foods out there then am exposed to them I have no willpower to resist them because it’s been so long since I’ve tasted something different than my routine food. I will want nibbles of everything and we all know those nibbles add up quickly! *cough*stupid nibbles*cough*
Granted, this could just be because I have ridiculously weak willpower but I feel it is a valid point.
Wouldn’t it be better to learn one new healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner meal per week, slowly integrating the new healthy meals in to your life so that you get to eat healthy, experience new foods (or at least foods cooked in different ways than before) and bonus you actually enjoy eating instead of dreading it because you’ve been eating the same foods day in and day out?
When I did my super strict Paleo Plan I ate the same foods everyday, in the same order, cooked the same way, nothing ever varied. Did I lose weight? Well, technically yes, I actually built muscle so I lowered my body fat % but my scale had me going up a bit (ya know, cause of that whole muscle vs fat thing). Did I enjoy my food? No. It became a thing I had to do, had to deal with, and I couldn’t wait for each meal to be done because by week two I was so bored. For a while my willpower saved me from cheating. If I was out for dinner I’d order a salad, no dressing, grilled chicken breast on top. I can’t believe I’d pay $16 or so for something so basic but I did, all because it was as close as I could get to what I “should” be eating. I hadn’t learned from my strict Paleo Plan how to navigate eating in a restaurant, what to do if I was at a friends, how to grab something to eat on the go. All I had learned was to eat the same thing over and over and when I was in a situation that varied from my normal day-to-day schedule the Plan abandoned me to figure things out on my own…it’s like kicking a kitten to the curb when it isn’t yet weaned, no way I had the skills or know-how to figure things out on my own.
Sidenote, the kitten to the curb analogy made me look at my cat and get all “oh that’s such a mean thought” so I paused to cuddle my cat…something he doesn’t appreciate cause I woke him up lol 😛
Realistically, how long can a person eat the same foods on a daily basis?
I have to say I think this point, written up how it was written, is flawed. If they had said eat the same meals daily for two weeks than slowly add additional healthy meals that’d be ok. But this makes it sound like you should be eating the same foods daily for ever.
It’s way healthier to learn what foods are healthy, then learn how to cook a variety of dishes using those foods, eventually ending up with an arsenal of go-to meals that are healthy, tasty and varied enough you aren’t (1) bored to tears or (2) so deprived of taste variety you end up going overboard food-wise when put in a situation that is full of temptations. Well, in my opinion anyways…I’ll stop ranting now lol
It seems that I am taking part in the 30 Day Squat Circuit Challenge…I’m still mildly confused by this even though it was my decision to do it lol
I’m doing this??
I did the first day thinking something along the lines of “I can do this but it doesn’t really mean anything…I can still not do the challenge…” then I did day two and three and well, it seems I’m committed now lol. 😛
I’m glad I’m doing this challenge, it’ll be good for me, and will hopefully push me to get to the gym more often, and the mountain! We got some fresh snow the other day up on the mountain so guess whose hoping to go snowshoeing tomorrow? If you guessed me you’d be riiiiight! 😀
Today was spent with my lil sis at the gym working with a trainer. He focused on showing us solid, full body moves that we can do in gyms or at home (so we have no excuse to not work out lol) and I felt like I got a good workout. Not as good of a workout as it could have been but that was because it was a learning workout so there were more pauses than there normally would be as he explained things, or corrected form or took pictures. Yes, took pictures, weird huh? He took pictures of us doing various exercises that he will email us so we will remember what the proper form looks like for various exercises. Smart man.
He also gave us a suggestion for a workout to do together next week (this week was our last session with him, sadness), he suggested we do the Widow Maker. Neither of us had heard of it, it is basically a freakin huuuuuge outdoor staircase that equals to 12-13 flights of stairs. Huh. We promised we’d do it next wednesday and have also promised to email him to let him know we did it so we really do have to do this thing, we’re accountable to the man…I think that was his sneaky plan to make sure we kept working out…
He also suggested we go back in 3-4 months and have another fitness evaluation so we can see how far we’ve come (this is of course assuming we get better and not worse lol). I think it’s a great idea! My lil sis wasn’t quite as excited at the idea but maybe she’ll warm to it…I was hoping to magically find the money to be able to meet with a trainer from there every three weeks or so, to help me stay on track, learn new things, and to eventually re-evaluate my fitness levels. I can’t sign up with the trainer we’ve been working with cause he charges $75/hour and you have to book minimum 2 sessions per week with him, eek! Sooooo can’t afford that! He said other trainers there charge $65/hour and don’t have minimum amounts you have to work with them. I’d rather stay with him cause I’ve been working with him but I’m sure the others are just as good. However, I have decided I can’t afford the expense, boo! But am more than willing to take up his offer of another fitness evaluation in 4 months time. This will give me something to work towards and motivation is always a welcome thing in my world lol
I find I have a tendency to lose motivation, I still have all the reasons I have always had to get in shape buuuuuut my laziness takes over and I forget in the moment why I should work out instead of go to a movie with a friend, oops? lol Adding another reason for why I should work out is good, but what will make the difference is that he will be seeing me in a relatively short amount of time and I want to be able to show him I’ve gotten better, not stayed the same or gotten worse. I think knowing I will be tested will help me to not eat the bad-for-me-food and will also help me get out there and exercise. *crosses fingers*
Oh, and don’t forget that 8km I signed up for…I should really start training for that soon…maybe that should be my motivation? 😉
The Amazing Shrinking Woman 