Tag Archives: losing weight

Hello Arch Nemesis aka Blueberry Bagel

3 May

It has never been a secret that I love carbs, in all forms. I am a carb junky, could happily live off of bread and bread alone for the rest of my life. I’d be a blob of a person but hey, my taste buds would be happy! lol

During dragon boat season I try my best to go super low to almost no carbs. It sucks. It is hard. I pretty much hate it. Buuuuut, it’s for a good reason and the reason is a solid one so what’s a girl to do? *rolls eyes*

Over the past little while I have decided that this season I can’t do what I did last season. Last season I was high protein, high healthy fat and super low carbs. I was allowed max 150 grams of carbs a day, but really, should be more like 125 grams at the most, and those got in my body via fruits and veggies. It’s depressing how many carbs are in veggies, sigh.  Well, it worked, I worked out hard 6 days a week, ate a super restrictive diet and I saw a change, a positive one, a tightening and toning, and I felt fairly good about how I looked…well, to a point lol. Thing is, I got so obsessed with food that if I deviated even a tiny bit I felt huuuuuuge guilt about it and would be convinced that one piece of bread or that extra serving of salad that put me over my 150 grams of carbs per day had derailed my whole effort and it would take me at least a week to fix. Yeah, I get obsessive about these things and a tad nutty, it’s just my way I guess. 😛

I’m getting a bit off track here…

My point is that I think removing something entirely from your eating plan can be a risky game. Your body needs some carbs, sure not as many as most North Americans eat in a day but some. And freaking out about going a tiny bit over, or refusing to meet a good friend for dinner because you know the restaurant won’t have anything that fits in your meal plan, or snapping someones head off because you want bread so badly you could cry are not good things.

There must be a balance somewhere!

So this season I am still high protein, high healthy fat and low carb, but not crazy gonna kill someone just so I can eat their sandwich low carb. More of a don’t eat carbs 90% of the time, but every now and then it is ok. And if I do eat carbs have it be a small portion and still have a balanced meal. Oh, and the carbs have to be really worth it, not just eat them to eat them, ya know?

In reality what this looks like is this: I don’t eat any carbs at work, I try my best to not eat carbs in the form of bread, potato or rice in a restaurant, I still don’t own rice or potatoes or bread so I can’t eat them at home…hmm, so far, that’s about as far as I have gotten with my strategy.

However, for all that I can control what I do and don’t buy, I can’t control what other people give me as presents. Oh how I wish I could! A friend at work brings me presents, almost always food presents, and no matter how often I tell her she doesn’t have to do that she still does. She won’t take no for an answer! This evening she comes to work, plunks down a Tim Horton’s bag in front of me and says “for you dear!”. I could smell the bagels! They smelled soooooooo good! Bagels have to be one of my all time favourite form of carbs. It just sucks that one bagel is equal to 5 bread servings, FIVE!!! That is ridiculous! So guess who doesn’t eat bagels anymore? This girl! Well, try telling that to ML, she just won’t hear it. Not only did she give me bagels, she gave me three bagels, three blueberry bagels! Now how am I supposed to be able to resist that?? *groans*

On the drive home I ate one, I can’t even bring myself to feel bad about it, it was so soft and fresh and tasty, omg was it tasty! But then I kept thinking how I have two more in the bag and while I can sorta condone eating one I can’t eat three. And yes I know, I wouldn’t be eating three in one sitting but spreading them out over the next couple days but to me that is almost worse. It’s like throwing a carb bomb into three days worth of eating, so three days in a row I completely mess things up? I don’t think so!

Enter willpower! The only true protector against any food arch nemesis lol

There is a homeless guy that is always in this one intersection when I drive home from work, he walks up and down with an empty cup wanting people to give him money. When I got to that intersection I asked him if he would like some bagels and he said yes, he seemed really happy about the idea. So the bag got handed over to him and there ended my potential sabotage to my eating plan for the next two days. And bonus, I did a good deed! 🙂

Now, if this was last season and I had eaten that bagel I’d be beating myself up about it and feeling horribly guilty. Right now? Well, mostly I feel tired since it is late lol and I do feel a bit bad cause I didn’t neeeeed the bagel, but I am looking at it as an unexpected treat that I enjoyed. 🙂 End. Of. Story.

Arch Nemesis!

Arch Nemesis!

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Don’t Borrow Your Calories!

19 Apr

For the love of all that tastes good Don’t Borrow Your Freakin Calories!!!!! Now don’t take offence, I’m not snapping at you, I’m snapping at myself because I have borrowed my calories at least 4 times in the past 2 weeks and it’s pissing me off, grr! *mean eyes*

What do I mean by “borrowing calories” you wonder…lemme explain! 🙂

Borrowing calories is when you have a thought process that goes something like this:

hmm, should I eat that waffle? yeah, it’s ok, I’ll eat it because I am going on a 15km hike same day so it’ll balance out.

it could also go like this:

do I splurge and share the appetizer with my friend at dinner? yeah go for it! you’re going running tomorrow morning then to dragon boat practice tomorrow evening so you’ll burn it off no problem-o.

Now, you might not think there is a huge problem with those thoughts, I mean sure, I shouldn’t have the waffle at breakfast or split the appetizer at dinner but a little treat every now and then isn’t gonna kill me (immediately…lol), the problem is when the planned activity doesn’t happen. In those above instances the hike got cancelled due to being called in to work and the running and dragon boating got cancelled because of sleeping in (ok, fine, my bad!) and such an extreme wind storm the club cancelled boating practice. sigh.

The end result was I ate calories I wouldn’t of normally eaten because I was oh so sure I was going to be doing enough physical activity to counteract the calories but then ended up not doing anything to counteract the food I stuffed in my face, double sigh.

It isn’t so bad if it happens once in a blue moon, I mean, if it had only been the time my hike got cancelled cause of last minute being called in to work then hey, not so bad, I wouldn’t be upset about it. But this has happened one too many times for my comfort level lately, ya know?

Must. Be. More. Careful.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to better prepare for possibilities like this but really, how do you prepare for the unexpected? I think the only action to take is to be more diligent with the food I eat and be less lenient with treats and splurges. Also, I have to break the idea of eating something and then planning to exercise it off later. Instead it should be reversed. If I want to have a treat of some kind, I need to earn it by exercising first and enjoying the treat later.

Basically, bribe myself to work out lol 😛

I’ll have a more structured work out schedule for the rest of dragon boat season because I am now paddling with two teams, yah! So I have practice Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights and Saturday morning. The Saturday morning practice may kill me…8:30am is a tad early for exercising in my world but whatcha gonna do? *raised eyebrow* Tuesday and Thursday mornings I usually go hiking or to the gym (depends on weather and my mood) and the other days of the week are all in flux. I don’t have them scheduled yet but I’ll sort something out. I usually hike either Sunday or Monday after work…hmm, lemme put this down in some kind of order:

Monday: usually hike after work, or gym, or biking with KL

Tuesday: gym or hike in morning, dragon boat practice in evening

Wednesday: dragon boat practice in evening

Thursday: gym or hike in morning, dragon boat practice in evening

Friday: not gonna lie, usually nothing, I sleep in before going to work lol

Saturday: dragon boat practice early morning

Sunday: usually hike after work, or gym

Sooooo, that is one day I for sure do nothing (Fridays) and two days of possibly nothing if I flake cause the activities are not planned (Sundays, Mondays). All the other days I am for sure doing something…that’s not soooo bad. Not the guaranteed 6 days of intense physical activity I was doing last summer but I’m working up to that, sorta…I don’t know why it’s so much harder to get my ass in gear this year, sigh, but I’ve gotta come up with something to provide extra motivation and I don’t think bribing myself with a potential waffle is the way to go! lol 😛

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Kick Ass Week

24 Mar

Ok, so right now I’m not feeling so great, not sick, just not well…if that makes sense? It’s not like I caught a cold or something, I just feel off, I have a bunch of little things that are wonky right now that don’t add up to any one illness, and by themselves wouldn’t be that big of a deal buuuuut when combined, and when I’m uber tired I become cranky and less able willing to deal with them by continuing on in my regular routine. 😛

None of that matters though because it is almost the end of my week and my week has been beeawesome! 😀

Tuesday afternoon, I was informed that I may be done physio! DONE!! Finally! YAH!! I am super excited for this for a couple reasons: (1) it’s freakin expensive and I couldn’t afford to do anything else while paying for physio, (2) it means I am better so I don’t have to worry about my neck and back anymore and (3) it takes a decent chunk of time out of my life twice a week and I want that time back! I mean c’mon, I could be sleeping…which is an excellent use of my time because it makes me happy and doesn’t cost anything! 😉 lol The small print to this news is that my being done physio is dependent on how I do for the next 3 weeks, sigh. I have to gauge how my back and neck deal with the crap I put them through and if at the three week mark I have experienced pain, discomfort, loss of agility blah blah blah then I have to go back, ugh. Soooooo, I am really trying to not screw this up and do something that’ll mess with my neck and or back again…I have decided, the way I am going to look at things, is that I am done physio because that thought puts a huuuuge grin on my face!

Tuesday evening, omgomgomgomgomg first dragon boat practice of the season!!! Hellz yah! It was awesome, and cold, and rainy, and dark, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything! By the time warm up started, which is held outside, it was still pouring rain and while it had been raining earlier but wasn’t cold it was now raining and cold, lovely. Kinda made warm up interesting as we were all wanting to keep moving more than normal lol. We had to rebuild the team so this first practice was more a getting used to the feel of the team in the boat, seeing how strong we were, stuff like that. We didn’t focus on form or strength or speed but we will, oh how we will! I fully expect our amazing coach to kick us all in to gear and make us a winning team! Personally, I think we already are a winning team, we felt great when paddling and that was only the first practice of the season! so how can we not win when we will just keep getting better and better? *raised eyebrow*

Wednesday, I had my volunteer dealio, I am a Big Sister…as in The Big Brothers and Big Sisters Program, know it? I don’t know why but people don’t recognize the organization when I just say Big Sisters, they only get the lightbulb of understanding when I say “ya know, big brothers and big sisters…” what’s with that? I think Big Brothers has better advertising then us…? Ah well. So my little sister, who incidentally is a bit taller then me (which is kind of rare in my world since I am 5’8″ ) turned 16, ahhhh, sweet sixteen, remember those years? Cringe a bit? Yeah, I did too! lol. Why do people get all excited about being a teen, and reminisce about it so much when being a teen sucks? You can’t do anything adult yet, can’t drive, can’t work, can’t decide when you are going out or for how long, can’t decide what your cell phone plan will be or if the house will have internet or cable, depending on the parents you don’t get to decide your own wardrobe, can’t randomly get tattooed, generally don’t get to choose what’s for dinner…there’s all kinds of things that as adults we can do that we don’t think about, that teens want to be able to do but are denied and yet! Adults expect teens to act like, dun-dun-dun, adults! Double standard I think, shrug. But regardless of that, she is super happy to be 16! She’s one step closer to driving (her thoughts, not mine) and getting a tattoo (also her plan) and is constantly trying to figure out how to survive as an adult once she is an adult. She wants to be a teacher and live in a co-op but also do her art (she’s a wicked awesome artist!) and she basically is like every single 16 year old in that her life plans change almost weekly and she wants to do everything possible and is only now realizing she doesn’t know how she is going to manage all these dreams and ideas and goals. I am loathe to say that some dreams she will have to drop in order to pursue others, so I keep my mouth shut about that and encourage her weekly in what she has now decided is her new plan.

Thursday, the weather was amazing, like super amazing, as in sunny and warm but not hot, no wind, gorgeous! So I did what any normal person would do, I skipped the gym and went for a hike! 🙂 I was slightly misled about the hike so the workout wasn’t exactly what I planned for but that’s ok, it was such a lovely day and I had such a great time that I am cool with how things went down. The hike starts about 25 minutes drive from where I live and I was told it is 2 hours, now, I took this to mean 2 hours up and 2 hours down so I planned for a 4 hour (give or take) excursion. Yeah, no, so didn’t happen like that! Even with my pausing at the top to admire the view, sit and chill and actually just be in nature (turned off my music an everything! shocking!), also with my pausing on the way down to take pictures of pretty waterfalls etc the whole thing took me an hour and a half. I feel whoever climbed this thing and gave the time estimate for the climb must be a hobbit and take super itty bitty steps, cause anybody taking 2 hours to do that is either going so slow they might as well be going backwards, somehow manages to get lost (which me being me I almost sorta kinda did since I veered off the path and into the bush a couple times, oops! lol) or like I previously said, is the size of a hobbit. But it’s all good, it was a great hike and I’m glad I did it. I think I will use it as my go to hike during the summer when I don’t have a lot of time but really want to do something outside. 🙂

Friday, I got to take part in a make-up thing a friend is doing. She’s in school to be a make-up artist and she used me as her model, she made me up into total glam, it was sweeeeeeet! I looked great, all thanks to her! don’t take that as me being all valley girl vain (like omg, I am like, sooo hawt I practically sizzle! giggle…gag me! lol) I don’t have copies of the pics yet but I will and they will be a superb addition to my portfolio…even if they don’t do anything to minimize the look of my eyes (long story).

Saturday and Sunday I worked and both days I was in this not feeling sick but not feeling well funk so I didn’t hit up the gym, opting to sleep and hope my immune system figures out what the frak is going on and fixes it…so far that plan is a failure but never lose hope! All in all, I think I had an awesome week! I didn’t write about what I ate but everyday I tried to make healthy decisions, and I feel I managed it for the most part. Sure, I had some chocolate one day, and maybe definitely ate more bread then I should have (seems I’ve totally jumped off the no bread bandwagon as I keep buying the freakin stuff!) but I also made healthy meals, chose healthy options when eating out, was physically active (some days lol) and all in all, just feel good about most of the choices I made. 🙂

the view from the almost top of my hike! :)

the view from the almost top of my hike! 🙂

Not sure what those lines on the bottom left of the picture are…I’m going to pretend I chose for them to be there, creative licence an all! 🙂

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What A Day

21 Feb

Busy days are proof that the more you need to get done the more you can get done. If I am having a lazy relaxing kind of day I get almost nothing done, the dishes seem an insurmountable obstacle. Laundry? So not happening! Leaving the apartment to do errands? You might as well be asking me to cure the global economic crisis. But a day that is highly scheduled, has a lot that has to get done, those days I can do everything on my list and more! What’s with that? *confused face*

Today was an awesome day, despite the fact that it’s supposed to be my day off and it still started at 5:30am, ugh. I am soooooo not a morning person! And yet, today, my alarm buzzed and I got my lazy butt out of bed and started to tackle the first of all those many things I had to get done today…uh, the first being feed the cat, the second being hop in the shower lol

I was filming today and had to be on set, camera ready by 7am. Something I find very telling in life is that sure, for my day job I can get to work for 7am two shifts a week, I get there because I don’t want to be fired and I’m pretty sure consistently being late would (1) really piss off the person I am relieving and (2) really piss off management and get me fired…neither are things I want to happen, so, I get my butt to work for 7am, and while I really enjoy my day job, I hate those shifts. But! If I have to get up and be on set for 7am or earlier, it’s fine, it’s better then fine, I get out of bed the second that alarm goes off, no hitting the snooze button, no bitching as I fumble around for the lamp switch, no hiding under the pillow and wishing for a major catastrophe to happen so I can justify not getting up. I happily get up, mind already on what I will be doing on set that day as I trip over the cat on my way to his food dishes and then hop in the shower – seriously, that is how every day starts for me, dealing with the cat’s stomach then my cleanliness…:P

Starting to get off topic there, oops! lol

So, up early was I (and apparently I am now channeling Yoda lol) and off to set I went with a bag stuffed with changes of clothes, shoes, makeup for touch ups (just in case) and well, that’s it…normally I would pack a snack but I didn’t remember this time, my bad! I of course had my ever present travel mug filled with wonderfully hot tea, can’t start the day without that! I got to set, did the filming, had a blast, then actually got off early enough that I could have lunch before going to work. I don’t normally work Thursdays but there was a function being held at work and they asked if I wouldn’t mind coming in for just 4 hours so there was extra staff if it got really busy. Being that I am poor and need money I obviously said yes. 🙂 After lunch, which I ate at home with the cat on my lap (he was ignoring his food and was uber interested in my Subway 6″ turkey on 9 grain whole wheat sub, the mooch!) I changed, turns out I didn’t need to take my work clothes with me to set after all, and headed off to work. It felt very weird going there on a Thursday.

Work was fun, I enjoy my time there, and because it was a little shift during a fun function type thing it didn’t seem quite as much like work as it normally does lol. What can I say, I can easily trick myself! 😛 I had to dash out of there at 5pm on the dot though because next on my daily schedule was a physio appointment that I can’t be late for, if you are late you run the risk of not getting in because there are no vacancies to fit you in but you still have to pay for the session, eek! I had a painful, but useful, session with my physio, which lately is how all the sessions are. I learned something potentially interesting though. See, I can’t afford to join the gym because of how much I have to pay per week on physio. Today, my physio asked how I feel body wise compared to how I felt before the accident, he so shouldn’t of asked me that lol The first thing I said was I feel fat. I know he meant how does my body feel in relation to the injuries but ah well, he asked, I answered. He said I could start back at the gym if I go gentle and do the exercises approved by him, that it would most likely increase my recovery time because it would be helping the muscles in my back and neck heal quicker. I told him I want to go back but I can’t afford my weekly physio charges and the cost of the gym membership so I was kinda stuck. He said that the insurance company may pay for three months of gym fees because the exercise would help in my recovery and I should talk to my case worker. So of course, I added “email my case worker” to my list of things to do in the day and did that as soon as I got home after physio…which I almost fell asleep during, oops! lol The sessions always end with me laying on heat pads for my back and neck and the early start to the day caught up with me as I was laying there motionless and warm, almost dozed off! Good thing someone dropped something and it jarred me back to full consciousness…although at the time all that did was make me feel grumpy. 😉

After all of that I got to head back to the apartment, where I have since been dealing with student loan stuff and taxes, hanging with the cat, watching some tv, texting and talking on the phone with various peeps and am now seriously contemplating going to bed since I have pre-work plans for tomorrow and I want to be fully rested!…or at least partially rested lol

If I could accomplish this much everyday well, I’d be exhausted lol, but think of how productive I would be! Actually, let’s not go there, I like being lazy 😉

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A Slight Delay, sigh

18 Feb

Ok, so my plan for today didn’t work out but I have hope for later in the week, kinda lol.

I woke up this morning sick, ugh, talk about timing! My plan for today was to go to the gym after work, use my One Free Session coupon I printed off the website and assuming I liked the place sign up for a membership. I was so psyched for this (also kind of scared, but mostly excited lol). But yeah, so didn’t happen. All while getting ready for work this morning, and all during work I kept thinking maybe I’ll be ok by the time I’m done work, maybe I can still go! By the time I was done work though I was exhausted, and not the normal didn’t get enough sleep the night before exhausted but that lethargic tired you get when sick, and I was so so so cold and couldn’t get warm and my throat was killing me and…and…and…why go on listing symptoms right? We’ve all been sick so you know what was going on over here. Bleh.

I had no appetite all day but I made sure I ate a small breakfast and a provided by work lunch and I eventually managed to choke down some dinner. I’m pretty sure I could have gone the day without food cause that is how squashed down my appetite is but since I am trying to correct my not eating properly habits I figured it was better to force a mildly healthy days worth of food down my throat then not eat. Isn’t it feed a cold, starve a flu?…or something like that…or is it drown a cold as in I should have been drinking more fluids then normal? *confused face* hmm…I’ll have to google this cause I’m not sure which way it is supposed to go lol 😛

I am super annoyed that I didn’t get to the gym today cause I won’t have another chance to try until Wednesday, although maybe that is for the best cause that’ll give me an extra day to feel better…meh, whatever, I am still annoyed. I know some people think you should still work out when sick but I find that if I do that I take even longer to get better and the day after the work out I am in even worse shape then I probably would have been if I’d just stayed home and let my body rest. I figure each person has to figure out what works best for their body and go with that. 🙂

This cold is like a harassing little mosquito that won’t leave people alone. A couple people at work have also had it and it comes back, and back, and back! I was sick about two weeks ago, not so sick I was bedridden but sick enough getting through the work day was pretty hellish and on my days off I cancelled all my plans and just stayed home and tried to get better. I finally did get better, obviously, but then today was like some weird resurgence of the cold only instead of coming on gradually it hit me all at once. The same thing happened to two other people at work, they were sick with their colds 2-3 weeks ago and around the second week of being better they got sick again. So TF is sick again at the same time as me and CJ was sick for the second time last week, she said she only really felt sick for two days the second time around so I am hoping I only have one more day of this and then my immune system gets itself organized and kicks some invading microbes butts! *crossing fingers*

I don’t want all my plans to go out the window cause look at how long it took for me to stop being depressed about how I am and get motivated to change it! If I lose this momentum and end up down in the hole again thinking “what is the point so much damage has been done it is not fixable” can someone come slap me upside the head cause seriously, that is not a fun place to be. 😦

I did try to drink more fluids today but I don’t think I managed to drink as much as I normally do. See, I am a tea-aholic lol I drink tea like it is going out of style! I have a travel mug that I use at work that is constantly filled with tea, as soon as I finish one cup I make another, it’s like a never ending 8 hours of tea! 😀 Granted, I don’t drink it that fast cause the cup keeps it hot for a long time (the whole reason I use the travel mug and not a normal mug, sneaky huh? lol) but I definitely go through a lot of tea while working. Then when I get home the first thing I do is make a cup of tea and depending on my plans for the evening I either am out or home and if I am home I will be drinking more tea. Hey, there are no calories, it’s a fluid, holding a hot cup helps keep me warm-ish and I have English blood in my veins which basically means my blood is half tea 😉 being  a heavy tea drinker is practically my destiny lol. But today, I didn’t really want it as much. I wanted the hot cup to hold but that’s about it. My tea drinking was definitely not endless, shocking! When I got home I did have two cups of tea over the course of the evening and about a glass and a half of water, all of which were drunk in an attempt to make my throat feel better (fyi, totally didn’t work, sigh). As a result, now I am feeling mildly dehydrated and yet, my tummy doesn’t want anything in it so I guess it’ll be a battle of the body systems, wonder which will win? Will the body parts that want hydration be strong enough to tamp down the upset tummy feeling long enough that I will be able to drink some more water or will the tummy win and the water be a no-go mission? Ooooh, the suspense! 😉

To be honest, right now I don’t really care, about the missing out on the gym or the possibility of being able to drink something or anything cause I feel like crap and the only thought I have in my brain right now is going to bed…which is where I am headed riiiiiight now! *yawn*

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A New Start

17 Feb
I'm the pink bird...

I’m the pink bird…

I have been feeling like that pink bird, all round and fat and failing at losing weight…not even just losing weight but maintaining my weight, watching my food choices, getting daily exercise…a failure at every aspect of my so-called healthy living lifestyle. I’ve gone a bit off the deep end lately with trying extreme things to get back on track and ya know what? None of those extreme things worked, shocking right? 😉 lol They didn’t last, how could they? They didn’t get me results, even if they had they’d of been false. They didn’t make me feel good, both physically and emotionally. I wasn’t giving my body what it needs to function at peak efficiency and then  I was somehow surprised that I wasn’t getting the results I wanted? *sigh* How dumb am I? 😛

Well today I took the first step towards fixing this. What was my step? I went shopping! 😀

Yes, shopping. You read that right lol. But it is what I went shopping for that matters.

I hit up Popeye’s, the store I buy my protein powder and other supplements from, I haven’t been there in aaaaaages! I was almost out of protein powder right before I moved and decided to wait till I had moved to buy another container cause those containers are just too big and annoying to want to deal with when moving lol. Buuuuut, after I moved I never got back in to my exercise routine and my eating habits changed and before you know it I’d stopped even pretending to try to remember to go buy some more powder, epic fail on my part. While picking up the protein powder I also got my NutraSea Omega Oils, normally I get the one with Vitamin D in it but the one without Vitamin D was on sale so I went that route. I figure summer is eventually gonna get here and I’ll get enough Vitamin D then lol 😛 I also bought something I have been hearing great things about, its called VegeGreens, it is a powder that you can put in your protein shake or add to a glass of juice or water and it gives you multiple veggie and fruit servings without having to eat all your veggies and fruits. Now, I know some of you might be thinking “why not just eat the veggies and fruits? it’s got to be the healthier more natural way to go!” and you know what, maybe you’re right, I can’t say for sure because this one time I leaped before doing all my research but I’ll tell you why I decided to try it. I don’t get all my fruits and veggies in a day that I am “supposed to”, I fall quite short, when I am following my eating plan my veggie and fruit intake is guarded because of how many carbs are naturally occurring in them. Also, I just don’t eat that much food, that’s right, I confess! So sue me, I don’t eat enough food in a day that I can fit in all the fruit and veggie servings the Canada Food Guide says I should have as well as all the protein and dairy and blah blah blah...it’s too much freakin food! lol I had been toying with starting to take a multivitamin but I don’t agree with multivitamins and after speaking to a doctor I am even more convinced I don’t want those in my body but this product is all natural and sort of like a better version then a vitamin…theoretically! I’ll give you an update on it once I’ve been taking it for a while, let you know what I think of it. Cause we all know my opinion matters! lol 😉

So that was Stage 1 of shopping…yup, there were 2 stages! Two! Yah! 😀

Stage 2 was hitting up Walmart, it was originally going to be a trip specifically to buy the ingredients needed to combine with the protein powder and omega oil to make my protein shake but they were having some really good sales so I also bought some other healthy foods that I am quite excited about! 🙂 See, part of the shopping is for powders an stuff, the rest of the shopping is for food, normal food, healthy food, food I’m not embarrassed to have in my shopping basket…it’s been a while. I used to go grocery shopping and actually feel a little smug about how I had only healthy items in my basket and other people had cookies or crackers or chips or cakes or some seriously processed foods of some sort. Oh how the smug have fallen. *sigh*shakes head in shame*, lately when I do shop what I have been buying has not been anything to be proud of. But that changed today! I bought some fruit, fresh and frozen, frozen veggies, almond milk and real milk, healthy soups, skinless boneless chicken breasts, cottage cheese, all kinds of yummy good for me things! 😀 I actually took a picture of everything I bought today after work, take a look:

The results of my shopping today

The results of my shopping today

Doesn’t it look great? Well, think what you want, I think it looks great! 🙂 In case you are wondering, I only bought the already sliced mushrooms cause they were on super cheap, and I also got the chicken for the same reason, it was a good sale day at Walmart. 🙂

The soups aren’t strictly in my eating plan, ok, fine, they aren’t anywhere near to being in my eating plan lol but I am trying to be a little less dictator-ish and a little more realistic this time. There will be days I don’t have time to cook the chicken, days I don’t want to eat the fish that is already in my freezer, days I am tired, or running late or just plain ol lazy. Those days I will lean a bit on what is technically processed food and therefore supposed to be forbidden but is on the healthy end of the scale for processed foods and items I feel aren’t that bad for me. The soups I bought are all vegetarian, loaded with veggie servings (ya know, those things I never eat enough of? lol) and tasty. They are all soups that I could eat when on Weight Watchers, heck, I could have the entire can or box of soup and not blow my points out of the water if I had wanted which is probably why I still feel they are ok to eat now. Unfortunately the real world doesn’t always go as planned, and those soups are for those days. A decision I feel comfortable with. I may change my mind a couple months down the road when I’ve been eating healthier, maybe they will become a thing I can’t tolerate anymore, who knows? I can’t predict the future so I’ll just have to wait and see what happens.  🙂

Stay tuned to find out what I am doing tomorrow to continue with My New Start! dun-dun-dun *teehee*

 

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So Far Not So Good

30 Jan

Ok, so I wrote in my last post about how I bought actual real food from the grocery store and my goal for the week is to eat in more then I eat out and to actually cook meals not just eat peanut butter out of the jar and to have an actual breakfast, lunch and dinner daily that involved food groups and were well balanced in every sense of the word…wellllll, I may not be doing so good with that, oops!

In my defence, it’s only partially my fault…oh who am I kidding, it’s all my fault lol. 😛

Yesterday I slept in so didn’t eat anything before I ran to physio, after physio I got a hot chocolate and an apple danish from the coffee shop near my physio because I was starrrrrving! then I did errands (all pertaining to my cat) and got my butt off to work. Exciting huh? Since I didn’t have time to eat breakfast I sure as heck didn’t have time to make something to take with me and eat at work so I ate a slight variation on what was made in the kitchen that evening. I ended up having two crab cakes (I said I only wanted one but I have noticed that chefs seem to all have this crazy urge to over feed you, sigh) and a nice big salad, yum!

Then today I woke up sick, ugh, not crazy flu sick but definitely sick so I ended up staying home in an effort to baby my body back to health, here’s hoping it works! *crosses fingers* Oddly enough, I ended up eating three meals today! Three! In one day!!! It’s like the world has tipped on it’s axis or something! For breakfast I had a piece of chicken, mixed grilled veggies (there were zuchinni, red pepper and onion) and sliced yam, it was all quite yummy! Lunch was a bowl of shreddies cereal with a cut up banana on top and dinner was a grilled cheese sandwich with a tuscan tomato and basil bisque soup. I love that soup! I buy it at Safeway in the deli section, Mmm! Normally when I am sick I don’t eat, I just have no appetite and even less energy and I basically just don’t wanna lol but for some reason today I decided screw it, even if I am sick and I don’t feel like being in the kitchen I have to eat and why not do my best to eat proper meals and not just snack on some carrots.

So sure, the grilled cheese sandwich doesn’t fit in to the new rules I gave myself about what makes up a meal but hey, at least I ate and didn’t starve myself right? I feel like I should get points for that even though in reality I know I won’t lol

I am thinking though some slight changes to my rules might be needed…originally I decided I had to have three meals a day, breakfast could be small (I’m not a big breakfast person) so maybe some fruit and yogurt, simple ya know? Then lunch and dinner both had to have a protein and some veggies. I had to make the food more often then I bought a meal and, um, I think those were pretty much all my rules. Buuuuut, on days I work I can eat at work and generally the meals are healthy and with minor variations fit in to my rules for having a protein and a veggie so I’m thinking on work days if I eat the food from work it shouldn’t count against my rule for cooking my own food more then eating out cause, well, it’s made from fresher ingredients then anything I make, there will be a protein and a veggie serving and it’s only costing me $2…this is my thought on the matter, I’m still pondering it though so I may yet change my mind, we shall see!

As for today, I was inside all day sick which means nothing of interest happened so I have no funny stories to regale you with. The cat seems quite happy I spent time at home today, I was pretty much pinned to the living room chair all day by his body being sprawled across my lap while he slept, it’s good to know I have a purpose in this life *rolls eyes* lol

Here’s my inspiration for the day:

Sacrifice is giving up something good for something better!

So put down the cookie and go for a run, throw out the bag of chips and buy some fresh veggies, remember that what seems like a sacrifice today will one day be a habit you don’t even think about. You’ll stop hitting up the fast food joints and automatically make your own healthy dinner, you’ll stop reaching for the chocolate when you’re sad and automatically lace up your runners. You’ll reach your goals, and have the healthy body you want, and you’ll wonder why you put up such a fuss about giving up those mass produced cookies. What feels like a sacrifice today is actually you making the choice to do what is right and healthy for your body, you are putting you first, and that’s where you should always be!  🙂

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I Threw It Out

23 Dec

I can’t believe I did it, I actually threw out a donut, a fresh purchased from Tim Horton’s less then 2 hours earlier donut…it was a vanilla dip with holiday red and green icing on top, it was so pretty…or was before it had an unfortunate encounter with a book, oops!

Here’s the deal, I was at the airport with my cat, my whiplash and my muscle strain trying to figure out if I was hungry or not. I had a while to go before boarding but the food court was starting to close (quite early in my opinion) and I was left with making a rushed decision about food. I wasn’t feeling particularly hungry at that moment in time but figured once I got through security and was cut off from the various food sources in the airport my hunger would kick in and I’d be pissed that I chose to not eat. So I did what any self-respecting Canadian would do, I went to Tim Horton’s! 😀 Ordered a sandwich and on a whim decided to get a donut as well, I wanted a steeped tea but was about to go through security and knew I wouldn’t finish it in time and No Way am I throwing out a cup of tea!

Once the cat and I got through the ordeal of security (fun fact, you have to take the cat out of the carrier and walk through the metal detector while holding the cat so that the cat carrier can go through the x-ray machine…not that I would let my cat go through the x-ray machine but what genius *read that as moron!* came up with the idea of taking a terrorized cat out of his carrier in the middle of a busy airport???) *shakes it off* anyways! Once we got through that and were settled at our gate I decided it was din din time, Mmm! Timmy’s sandwich here I come! It was good, as I knew it would be, I got the turkey chipotle on brown bread, can’t go wrong there! 🙂

I had started debating about the donut, regretting the purchase, thinking I shouldn’t have done it, it was late-ish evening so I shouldn’t be having so much sugar, I wasn’t hungry now that I’d eaten the sandwich and I’m heading home to a bday dinner (mine), a xmas dinner (with the family), and multiple eating out situations over the course of the next week…do I really need to start my week of food-related-activites with a donut? That donut might be the item that tips the scale, that takes me from eating a bit too much to complete over indulgence, it might be the starting point of a horrible food week versus a not perfect food week…I know I know, that’s a lot of pressure to put on one little donut but I have found that the way you start a vacation is how you tend to maintain and end a vacation…it’s all about habits ya know?

So I pull the donut out of my purse (uh, it was in a bag of it’s own, not like it was loose in the purse lol) and realized my book squashed it! One whole section of it was smooshed almost completely flat! Poor donut. 😦 Now yes it was still edible, and some foods, oddly enough, are more tasty when slightly destroyed or just plain messier (like burgers, a burger tastes best when it is messy, I don’t know why, it just does, shrug) and I’m absolutely positive that donut would have tasted delicious but instead…I threw it out. Didn’t even feel a twinge of regret. Sure, I wasted the money I spent buying it but luckily donuts are cheap and if it’s a choice between wasting a bit of money and saving myself un-necesarry calories, well, I’ll save the calories everytime!

Here’s to having a great birthday (today) where I don’t feel I ate too horribly (home made stir fry for dinner thanks to my mom) and homemade birthday cake to go with it (hey! birthdays deserve dessert!). I may go a little crazy on xmas day but hey, I managed to throw out that donut so maybe I won’t? Guess we’ll find out! lol 😉

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Lost Ability

25 Nov

I have lost the ability to sleep, which I gotta say, really sucks. 😛 Normally I have trouble getting to sleep but I eventually manage it and once asleep I sleep like the dead. Earthquake? No waking up happening over here. Really bad storm? Nope. Loud noises outside my window? Nah. My ability to sleep through pretty much anything has always been something I have enjoyed, it meant that even if I didn’t get a long sleep time I got good quality sleep which, for my body anyways, seems to be the more important aspect about sleeping.

I know a lot of people are all “you gotta get 8 hours, blah blah blah” and I do understand about sleep being the time our bodies restore themselves and I also get how certain chemicals are released that help with losing or maintaining or gaining weight and how if we don’t get the right amount of sleep it can sabotage all that nice work we do during the day to keep ourselves looking how we want (-or for some of us, the work we do to try to get ourselves looking how we want *shuffles feet*) but I also think that every person is different and there can be no set rules about anything when it comes to our bodies and what is best. I can function wonderfully for a week at a time with only 3 hours sleep each night, I don’t nap, I don’t look tired (thank goodness!) and I’m not performing at diminished capacity or refraining from doing all my normal stuff due to tiredness…I do however eat more carbs lol

But this, this not being able to get to sleep and when I do manage to nod off not being able to stay asleep, this is just not pleasant. I’m cold throughout the day (and while yes, I am always a bit chilled this is a deep in the bones cold that my sweaters and endless cups of tea are doing nothing to touch), I am grumpier then normal, my eating is off (as in, I’m not really eating) and I feeeeeeel tired, ugh. Nobody likes to feel tired, that draggy don’t want to do anything but zone out and nap feeling, boo!

I haven’t figured out how to combat this little problem. I am refusing to let myself nap (something I seem able to do, so at least I know I can fall asleep…eventually, and at inconvenient times lol) but if I nap then I really can’t sleep that night which screws me up for work the next day, sigh.

Today after work I did some errands, then came to the apartment, watched a dvd, talked on the phone with peeps, scrubbed my bathroom from top to bottom, basically did whatever I could to keep my mind engaged enough that I wouldn’t nap cause oh man did I want to! I’m hoping that by not only refusing my body the nap it wants but also doing physical stuff around the apartment I wear myself out enough that tonight I get that elusive snooze fest *crosses fingers*

You’d think that if my mind/body won’t let me sleep I’d at least be more productive during those late night hours and be, I don’t know, solving world hunger, or writing the next great novel, doing something constructive and impressive with all this available time. Wouldn’t it be nice if this insomnia-fest was the universe’s way of giving me more time to get stuff done? Sadly though, just because I am not asleep at 3am doesn’t mean I am not tired so I am in bed, laying there with my hot water bottle and my comfy pillows, wishing for sleep, and hoping I at least doze off a bit, but not really succeeding. I figure I must be dozing off at least a bit here and there otherwise I’d be in crazy land by now from lack of REM time but I know it’s not so much unconscious time as to count as a real nights sleep. *rolls eyes*

Tomorrow I am taking down my dream catcher, it’s new and I wonder if there are too many bad karma vibes attached to it for it to be working…don’t laugh, or, fine, laugh, but know that if you were here in front of me I’d smack you for disrespecting the dream catcher 😛 I have had a dream catcher for so many years it’s crazy. I get bad dreams and I swear by my dream catcher. I don’t care if it’s a mental thing, you know, a I-think-it’s-working-therefore-it-is-working or if it really works, all I know is that it comforts me to have it hanging there, guarding me while I sleep…or not sleep as the recent case may be…but like I said, this one is new so maybe that has something to do with my new bout of insomnia…can’t hurt to take it down and try…course, I’m taking it down when I don’t work the next day so that if my removing it makes things worse it won’t set me up for a crap ass day at work…hope for the best but prepare for the worst right? 😉

 

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Couple Weeks Ago…

7 Sep

A couple weeks ago I had this awesome week, was super active, always seemed to be doing something, not every part of it was good stuff but hey, life isn’t 100% good stuff so ya gotta make room for the crap stuff every now an then lol 😛

I tried some new activities and want to give my take on them:

The Grouse Grind

This is a hike in North Vancouver, BC that is pure evil, grr! to you Grind, grr! It’s not that it isn’t do-able, people hike it everyday but it isn’t fun and costs you$10 at the end…lemme explain…you drive there, you pay for parking, you hike up 2.9 km (1.8 miles) and sure that doesn’t sound like a long distance but think of how this hike is described, it’s called “mother nature’s stairmaster” I kid you not! Go look at the website for it: http://www.grousemountain.com/grousegrind then when you get to the top you have to pay $10 to take a gondola ride down the mountain so you can rush back to your car before your parking expires because you mistakenly thought you’d do the hike in a short-ish amount of time so didn’t pay for too long of parking…hmm, that last part might be just me…lol. It’s not a fun hike, which is what I realized part way up the mountain. I thought it was just me who wasn’t having fun (I went alone, most people seem to go with someone), but when I looked at other peoples faces as they were going up they all had the same look on their face, one of torture. Uh, why the hell are we all climbing this stupid mountain if it isn’t fun?? Everyone looks like they are being forced to suffer through some torturous ordeal but uh, hello, didn’t we all make the choice to be there? And no way they were all first timers like me, so some of them must have known what they were getting in to, and yet, they went back, what’s with that? I guess a lot of people use the mountain as a personal challenge and keep returning so they can better their time, it’s like a point of pride or something…weirdos! lol

Most of the hike is man made stairs but every now and then is a part where nature has been allowed to stay in charge so you do a bit of scrambling over rocks (boulders? no, I think they are rocks…what’s the difference?) I prefer the rocks to the stairs. I like to hike, like for real hike, not climb a bunch of stairs hike, if I wanted stairs I’d go use a stairmaster at my gym lol, but ah well, it was still an experience and one I am glad I did, if only so I can say I did it lol.

My recommendation though would be to not do as I did and hike it on one of the hottest days of the year with minimal water in your pack and having not yet eaten anything that day (oh, and it was around 3p or so I think so not like I had only skipped breakfast, oops!), if you are hydrated, dressed for the weather, fed and not being roasted to death by the sun you’ll probably do all right. 🙂

The next thing I did that was new to me that week waaaas…

Bikram’s Yoga

For those of you who don’t know, that is a series of 26 yoga poses that last 90 minutes and are performed in a room heated to 40C with 40% humidity…so it’s hot! I paid $30 for a week of unlimited classes at a studio near my place. A friend from dragon boating said I have to go at least 5 times that first week because any less then 5 times I will hate it, 5 times or more and I will love it. I wanted to get the most out of my unlimited for a week so I made it my main source of exercise for that week. They teachers say your only goal for your first 5 classes (there is that number again) is to stay in the room, even if you feel overwhelmed by the heat just lay down on your mat and try to get through it, yeah, it is just that hot! lol. I managed to go 4 times in that week and am happy to say I not only stayed in the room each time but I performed all 26 poses each time, meaning, I didn’t stop and rest on my mat cause I couldn’t take it, yah me! Hey, don’t judge! I’ll take positive re-enforcement where I can find it! lol 😛 The Bikram yoga websites and teachers all tout the amazingness of this style of yoga (of course) and apparently there are all kinds of health benefits etc…I don’t know about any of that, but I do know you sweat a lot and I figure that has to be good for detoxifying your body, right? I dehydrated one day, got all dizzy, ran in to a wall in my apartment when going from the bathroom to my bedroom, kinda crazy, so it really is important to hydrate. It is suggested drinking lots of water the day prior and the day of your Bikram yoga session, I suppose since we should all be staying hydrated anyways this shouldn’t be a problem but who are we kidding? We all slip up at some point, shrug.

I decided against continuing on with Bikram’s Yoga. Even though I know a bunch of people who swear by it it’s really expensive and not what I am needing at this point for my main form of exercise. If it wasn’t so freakishly expensive I’d be really tempted to continue on with it, using it as part of my exercise routine but $160/month is too much to spend if I’m only going two times a week. You have to be really committed to Bikram’s to get your moneys worth.

Since then I have been doing my normal stuff, dragon boat practices (although season just ended, sadness, so no more of that for a while), gym time…I unfortunately got really sick two weekends ago and it was a pathetic recovery, took longer then I would like so I stayed away from the gym longer then I wanted to, mostly cause I had no energy, if walking to the store across the street caused me to get light headed and a bit dizzy I figured going to the gym was probably a bad idea lol. I seem to be all better now so I’ll be starting my gym time again soon, probably tomorrow before work. I’m going to be signing up for my boxing classes again once payday comes around since that’s my off season sport and I’m looking in to trying OC’ing, something a lot of dragon boaters seem to do once db season has ended…not sure I want to be on the water during the winter though, brr! lol 🙂

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