Tag Archives: weight watchers

Abnormal Sleeping

25 Oct

Once upon a time, when I was a wee little babe who still slept in a crib my mom would put me down for a nap or for the night and apparently I’d conk right out. Soon as I was laying down I was unconscious. Wasn’t I such a nice baby? 😉 lol

For as long as I can remember I have been a night owl – a condition I feel is not given enough respect in our society lol. I know when you’re a kid it’s your parents’ responsibility to give you a bedtime and make you obey it, and really, how is a parent supposed to tell the difference between a kid who just wants to be a brat and not go to bed and a kid who is destined to be a night owl?

So, as a child I often pushed the boundaries of my bedtime, trying anything I could think of to stay up late and when I couldn’t draw out the actual going to bed process any longer I’d lay in bed bored out of my skull wide awake with nothing to do. I’m sure 9 times out of 10 I fell asleep because of sheer boredom lol.

Well now here I am, an adult, and I seem to have completely lost the ability to get to sleep at anything approaching a “normal” hour. Although what is “normal” is sooooo up for debate 😛 But even I think it is getting out of control, and if I think that then you know that means I am having sleeping issues. Which, is so sad cause sleeping is one of my absolute fave activities evah!

Yeah, you heard that right, I looooove sleeping! I love my bed, my pillows, my blankets, I love curling up in bed with a book, I love slowly waking up and being more aware of how comfy I am as I turn over and burrow farther under my blankets and pillows lol, I especially love my dreams…which may sound weird but let me explain! My dreams are like stories, seriously, they have a storyline, a plot, they play out in my head like a tv show or movie except instead of watching what someone else created I am watching what my brain comes up with. 🙂 So much better!

For the past couple weeks or so though I can’t get to sleep. I usually go to sleep anywhere between midnight and 3am, depending on what I did that day, how early I was up, when I have to be up the next day, all kinds of stuff. But lately? Just not happening. I have still been going to bed somewhere in that time frame, usually closer to the 3am then the midnight lol, but all I do is lay in bed, bored, tossing and turning. I lay awake for so many hours I actually start to feel hungry! It’s way harder to get to sleep when you’re hungry…I decided to stay up packing one of those evenings, thought maybe if I wore myself out I’d actually get to sleep when I went to bed so I didn’t go to bed till 4am and all that accomplished was me not managing to fall asleep until about 7am or so, sigh. And last night! omg, sigh, went to bed at 3am, tossed, turned, did that thing where you know you must be dozing off every now and then but for the most part you’re well aware of the passage of time, was still tossing at 6am, eventually go to a pathetic version of sleep, woke up full an proper at 9am, then and only then did I manage to drop into a deep sleep which lasted all the way till 10:45am when my alarm went off. *groan*

I miss my long, deep, dream filled sleeps. 😦

And of course, because I’m not getting to sleep until stupidly late I (if my alarm isn’t set) sleep in until stupidly late in the day thereby screwing up my days schedule. erg. Suckfest.

I keep toying with the idea of taking a sleeping pill, popping it at like 10pm so I’d be asleep by what 11pm or so? (I’m not sure how quickly those things kick in) but I’m reluctant to regulate my sleeping with medication, there must be a better way!…what it is though I am in the dark about lol

Oh, and can I say, what pisses me off even more then missing out on my dreams is the knowledge that without regular proper sleep your body stops losing weight and will sometimes even gain weight – gain! Double suckfest.

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My Brain Is Stumped

21 Oct

I can’t seem to write a post today to save my life. sigh. It’s not writer’s block exactly, I have written two well thought out drafts…and then I deleted them because they are not what I want to post on this blog. One was too well, weird, the other was somehow becoming political…all cause I wanted to share a picture but the picture needs an explanation and the explanation was getting out of hand. I am the least politically minded person out there and well, hello? this is a weight loss blog – not a politics blog! Too bad about the picture tho…shrug.

I haven’t posted in a couple days, mostly cause nothing all that interesting was going on. lol. I had intended to post yesterday but got in this strange mood and actually wanted to pack so I figured I better not waste it lol. It’s not that I don’t like packing, I mean, really, what’s not to like? Put on some music, have a drink near by and put your stuff in boxes – easy peasy. 🙂 But I keep putting it off, mostly cause I am lazy…and scared of spiders. *shudder*. I don’t want to pack at night cause I’m scared when I’m moving furniture or getting stuff from under my bed or up high in my closet I’ll disturb spiders and I’ll see them but not easily enough to be able to kill them before they hide somewhere I can’t follow…like under a baseboard. ick. Then I’ll be freaking out about the spider, and how it is watching me and waiting for me to sleep so it can exact some sort of revenge, and I’ll be too icked out to do much else.

During the day I am out and about doing random prepping-for-the-move errands (like getting boxes, booking a truck etc) and when I get home from all of that I have just enough time to get a bite to eat before going to boxing. Which, fyi, tuesday was my last Dragon Boating session, then I boxed wed, thurs and fri and every-freakin-muscle in my body aches, and I mean aches! *groan*

This whole week I have felt off, I can’t figure what it is, but the boxing classes seemed harder then normal, my rowing was off a bit, it just seems like I am getting muscle fatigue quicker and it’s lasting longer then what I normally experience. I am hoping this is my body realizing I’m gonna keep making it work out even if it does insist on plateuing and so it’s caved and is building muscle mass and getting rid of fat – fingers crossed!

But yeah, so really, the only time I have to pack is in the evenings after boxing, so starting around 9pm or so but that’s when things get creepy cause of spiders…so I’ve been letting the whole packing thing kinda stay on the back burner…*whistles innocently*

I realized (thanks to my mom) that perhaps I have let things slide just a tad too much and should start packing. ugh.

I am quite possibly the least organized packer out there lol. I started in my room, got to a point and stopped there. Oh, and the ‘point’ I got to and then stopped at? Doesn’t really make any sense. Some of my books were packed but not even half, the contents of my desk drawers were packed up but not the stuff on my desk, most of the non-clothing items in my closet were packed but not quite all of them…you get the idea I’m sure. 😛 Then I moved to the living room…*rolls eyes*…most of my movies are packed, but not all, I did manage to pack an entire two shelves of a three shelf bookcase, and some random decorative items are now packed…ok, fine, most of them are packed. lol.

The only thing I am organized with is the labelling of boxes. Every box gets a number, I have a notebook where I write down the box number and the contents of that box so I know where every item is. Oh, and each box is labelled what room it needs to go in to at the new place, if it has fragile items in it and if it is heavy…I’d say that’s a decent level of organization, kinda… 😉

I’m happy to be able to say that the food-buying rules I came up with a couple weeks ago are still holding firm. 🙂 I am only buying (when needed obviously lol) eggs, milk, bread, yogurt, fresh fruit. I am not buying frozen food items, canned or boxed foods. This is not some weird addition to my healthy eating plan, lol, this is so I have less food to move. I don’t know about you but I somehow end up with a stockpile of boxed/canned foods. Most of it comes from when something is on ridiculously good sale, like the Thinsations, every now and then they go on a great sale so I stock up cause I know I am gonna eat them. But I always eat certain flavours faster then others so when I finish eating say, the Oreo Cakesters, instead of saying I can’t buy anymore until I have also finished the other types off I will buy more Cakesters. Gradually, I end up with more food in my cupboards then is practical for me space wise and diet wise. Sometimes it’s useful to have this stockpile, like when money is so short that I can’t afford to buy anything, then I know I have some food in the cupboards that I can eat, but really, a package of Thinsations chocolate covered pretzels does not a meal make – no matter how tasty they are. Yum! lol. 😛

Everytime I finish something and can get rid of the box or can or bag I get a little happy glow. 🙂 Yeah, so what if that is lame. 😛 lol. I did cave, kinda, and bought some frozen chicken breasts. I had a RainCheck for them cause when they were on sale the store was out of stock and I realized last night when cooking dinner once the chicken breast I was cooking was eaten the only things in my kitchen that would have protein were my last two hot dog weiners, eggs and peanut butter. Rather pathetic considering how often I exercise. lol. Sooooo, I decided buying the chicken, while yes, it was bringing food into the apartment, isn’t such a bad decision cause I’ll have eaten most of it by the time I move, and, well, it’s kind of a necessity, right? 😉

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I Cheer Blue

18 Oct

For the past two weeks I have missed the majority of The Biggest Loser episodes because my Dragon Boating was moved to Tuesdays. I tuned in this week just in time to see Bob ride a bull, Bonnie fell during the challenge, the red team finally won a challenge, Bonnie is pissed with Anna (her trainer), the blue team managed to not lose the weigh in, oh, and for some reason one of the guys on the black team didn’t have his weight loss count towards the team’s total…I’m not really sure why…

Even though I didn’t get to see the entire episode I still saw lots that kept me entertained. 🙂

This is the second season I have watched where instead of sitting on the couch and eating ice cream or cookies while watching I use the contestants as inspiration while I work on my (admittedly slower) weight loss journey. I don’t really “connect” with the contestants, it’s not like there’s been a contestant that I say “I so feel that person, we have so much in common” but that’s ok cause watching all of them while they push through their bad days helps me think I can push past my bad days.

I don’t like how they divided the teams this season, based on age…it seems like the older team, the Blue Team, is getting picked off one by one. I have this tendency to cheer for the underdog, in movies they usually win lol, but in real life rooting for the underdog doesn’t always guarantee you’ll be cheering for the winning team. 😛

I am not so delusional that I think either of the women left on the Blue Team will actually win the contest – I’m betting on the big guy on the Black Team whose the ex-football player. I mean, c’mon, dude is huge! Of course he’s gonna lose the most, he has the most to lose. Even though I know neither of the women on the Blue Team will win I am still cheering for them. Two of the oldest people on the ranch, with a new trainer, and more physical limitations then the other younger players…doomed I tell ya, doooooooomed! I keep wondering if the other teams will take pity on the Blue Team and do something to help them but I doubt it, they all want that big prize at the end and I don’t think any of them would dare risk their chance at winning it. lol. Human nature. 🙂

Today I ate:

1 Yoplait Light yogurt red velvet cake = 2 points

1 Weetabix = 1 point

1/2 C 1% milk = 1 point

1 banana = 1 point

leftover Coconut Shrimp Bites = approx 3 points

2 pcs toast = 3 points

1 fried egg = 2 points

1 cheese slice = 1 point

20 grams Vegetable Thins crackers = 2 points

1 pck Thinsations Peak Freans = 2 points

1 Thinsations Fudge Dipped Bar = 2 points

Total points eaten = 20

Exercise points earned = 3

I had to guesstimate on how many points the leftover shrimp from Red Lobster were, there were only like 5 in the container so I don’t think it was a crazy high amount of points eaten but just in case I guesstimated low I’m not eating anymore points today (even though I earned 3 exercise points). This kinda sucks cause I am still a tad hungry but oh well, shrug, I’m just gonna drink more water and/or tea and hope I’m actually just dehydrated and not for real hungry.

I’ve been enjoying my Yoplait Light yogurt that I got from the states on Sunday, so far I’ve had the Blueberry Pie and the Red Velvet Cake flavours. 😀 I blindly choose the yogurt flavour from the fridge so I was happily surprised when I got the red velvet cake flavour today – I’ve been psyched to try that one lol. There was a funny aftertaste with the blueberry pie flavour and the red velvet while yummy didn’t actually taste anything like red velvet cake lol. I have eight other flavours to eat so I’m reserving judgement on them all until I’ve gotten to taste all ten I bought. Then I will write a proper review on the Yoplait Light yogurts. 🙂 cause ya know, I’m sure you all care what I think about the yogurt line lol.

Go Blue Team Go!…might as well get my cheer on while the Blue Team still exists lol

Oh! and word of warning, if you get the Coconut Shrimp Bites from Red Lobster and microwave them to warm them up they explode in the microwave, a lot! lol. Luckily the container I warmed them up in had a cover so the batter that was being removed via the heat waves splattered onto the insides of the container and not all over the inside of my microwave. lol. I think I saved some calories by losing all that batter from the shrimp… 😀 lol

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Weight Ranges and I

17 Oct

Most everyone who has a weight loss blog has a desired weight they want to get to. I think most people in general have a desired weight or weight range they want to be at. Some look at the weight range as a far off dream they can never achieve, others use it to motivate themselves to make healthy choices throughout the day.

That number, or range, taunts us at times, it seems to hover in the distance never getting any closer. Mean huh?

I have never been good at gauging a person’s weight, that whole “guess my weight” game? I suck at it! Combine that with not really knowing what an appropriate weight is supposed to be and well, I start to get lost when it comes to weight ranges. I remember as a kid in grade 5, we had an assignment where we had to create a person, draw them, write a bio for them, the whole bit – just as if they were real and you were researching them. I don’t remember why we had to do this but the why isn’t really part of my point right now. lol. I created a lady, I don’t remember what age I made her, probably in the 20’s cause I thought that was the perfect age to be at. 😛 I remember I made her tall-ish and thin. Now, I totally randomly chose height and weight numbers because I didn’t really grasp how tall or fat any of the numbers I could choose from would make a person, shrug. What I do remember is my sister, when she saw the weight I made my person exclaiming over how thin I made her – apparently she was so thin she’d have been severely underweight, oops!

I tweaked her numbers until my sister said they were more realistic and left it at that. But lately, I thought of the woman I created and realized I wouldn’t do any better at giving her a good height/weight ratio today then I did back in grade 5.

So many things affect how we view the world, view others, view ourselves. It would be great if the entire world was just chock full of healthy people, if we were all somehow healthy – but who can even say what healthy is? There are so many different ways to judge a person’s health, and so many different definitions of what is healthy. Some people argue being overweight is a lifestyle choice and you are just as healthy being obese as you are being thin – I am not making this up! I watched a documentary about it. Others say you can measure a healthy body using BMI, weight, measurements etc. Some say just eye ball it, if you look good then you’re fine. Or go by how you feel – if you feel healthy then you are. So how do you know if you are healthy when there are so many ways to “measure” health, and many of those way contradict each other.

Years ago, when I still lived in AB and had a family doctor, she gave me a very stern lecture about how I was fat and needed to lose weight. She made it sound like it was the easiest thing in the world to do and she even seemed honestly confused that I wasn’t sure how to get rid of the fat I had accumulated. Please keep in mind this lady is one of those so-skinny-she’s-a-twig people and even when she was pregnant was super tiny and lost all the weight super fast. She said she “experimented” with many different types of diets so she could speak knowledgably about them to her patients – I applaud this, and yet, was annoyed by this. How could this woman, this incredibly thin woman, tell me after she’s tried the South Beach Diet, and Atkins and a whole bunch of other eating plans which one was best when she doesn’t have an ounce of body fat on her and never has? She doesn’t really know what it is going to take for me to lose the weight, she just has theories.

One thing she did give me though, was information. She let me know, for my height and gender what weight range I should be at. In case you are wondering, I am 5’8″ and female, so I was supposed to be between 130-135lbs. All these years later I am using those numbers as my goal, thinking nothing has changed and that information is still accurate. Well, I double checked that today and found times have a-changed and that weight range isn’t exactly what I should be aiming for. According to Weight Watcher’s, for my height I should be looking at a range of 132-164lbs. The way larger range they say I am ok to be using made me wonder what other numbers I might find out there. So I went googling…

On www.divine.ca the range I got was 125-144lbs. On www.healthcentral.com my range is 144-158.4lbs. I could keep going on with different websites but suffice to say, they all give a broader range then my doctor ever did and all the ranges are different. Most of them overlap with part of their numbers but still…none of them match. How is it so hard to find out what your ideal weight range should be?

What makes it even harder is I am in the entertainment business, which means a “normal” weight is considered a “larger” weight in my world. I have met actresses who in real life are in such good shape, they are toned, they are fit, they are thin, they are what many aspire to be. And yet, they have network officials telling them daily to lose weight because they look too fat on their tv show. It’s sad, not surprising, but sad. The camera really does add weight to your frame, and so these women, who look amazing in real life look a tad larger on screen then what we as viewers are used to and what the network officials are happy with.

I was checking out a website of an actress I don’t know because I was thinking of getting a website from the same company and they said to view hers to get an idea of what mine would look like – format, layout etc. I was checking out the various pages on her site and saw her stats, she is an inch taller then me and lower in weight then the range I had been aiming for. So, she’s 5’9″ and was 122lbs. This made me want to hit my head against a wall.

Here I am at 5’8″ struggling to get to 130-135lbs and she’s even lighter then me while being taller then me. Which means, even if I was at 130lbs, if I stood next to her, I’d look large. Crap.

Losing weight is hard enough without the added pressure of your work industry hovering over you like a rainy cloud. I try to ignore the knowledge that for an actress I am quite fat, and therefore way limited in the roles I can audition for. Sure, I have lost weight, and opened up more possibilities for me career wise, and yes I have my agent now which will help, but really, to have the best chance possible I have to get down in weight, and clothing size, and measurements, in everything…and not just to the weight range I’ve had in my head this entire time but to at least 5-10lbs below it…which means my journey just got ten pounds longer, sigh.

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If I Lived In The States…

15 Oct

(Disclaimer! I am not claiming all who live in the States would be like this or are like this, just that my self restraint is so pathetic I would be like this! 🙂 )

– I would most likely be a hoarder

– I would for sure be a crazy couponer

– I’d be even fatter then I already am

How do you (people who live in the States) handle the crazyness that are your grocery store flyers? My brain amost exploded just from flipping though one of them online – it’s for a store called Albertsons.

I am going to be in the states tomorrow on a little jaunt with some friends, now, I have been to the states many times, sometimes on vacations (Hawaii, California and more) and other times I went cause I had an American roomie who had to go down every month to fill a prescription and since she didn’t have a car I drove her and we’d usually end up stopping at Target cause she was in love with the place and just had to go everytime we were near one. No biggy, we got cheap cereal from there so I was happy. lol 😀

I thought the cheap food prices were because we were in a Target and Target is like Zellers or Wal-Mart, pretty much everything is cheaper. Well, it appears all your food is cheaper…even when I take in to account the difference in our dollars. And I swear half the things in that flyer had a “10 for $10” banner, how do you resist stocking up on every-frickin-thing?! There was pancake mix, two boxes for $2, 2 for 1 on fresh corn on the cob, 79cents a pound for squash, 3 for $10 for frozen pizza, ten for $10 on ice cream and frozen smoothies, 2 for $3 bags of frozen veggies, 10 for $10 for healthy pasta!…I could go on but you get the idea…

Are the flyers always this great?

Everytime I saw something in the flyer I eat that was 2 for 1 or ten for ten or priced in the cents amount I wanted to write it down and buy it when I am there cause the prices are crazy good! 🙂

I think I’d lose all self restraint in a grocery store in the states if I lived there, I’d be scooping up all the deals all the time, even the ones on bad-for-me foods – I now have a better understanding of those crazy couponers I see on tv lol. 🙂

Maybe I wouldn’t feel the need to snap up everything if I lived there cause I’d know that just around the corner another crazy awesome flyer would be showing up but I dunno…I think for sure for a while at least I’d be buying all those ten for ten foods…cause how do you resist buying something that’s a dollar each?

Can you imagine how much ice cream I could have stocked in my freezer? Oh the humanity! And that right there is why I’d be fatter then I already am cause not like I’d only be stocking up on healthy stuff and buying only the healthy food good deals…I’d be getting the ice cream, and frozen pizzas and who knows what else?! …cookies…I’d be getting cookies, and cakes and pies, that’s the “what else” – might as well admit it lol. 😛

So to recap, I’d be a hoarder cause I’d be buying way larger quantities of food then I could ever eat and it would eventually take over my apartment. I’d be a crazy couponer just for the sheer joy of getting to buy so much and save so much. And I’d be fatter cause I’d have a freezer full of ice cream and frozen pizzas and cupboards full of cookies and stuff from the bakery section of the store. 😛

Today I ate:

1 pckg Quaker maple and brown sugar oatmeal = 2 points

1 fried egg = 2 points

1 cheese slice = 1 point

1 pc toast = 1.5 points

1 SmartOnes Cranberry Turkey = 4 points

1 light babybell = 1 point

1 pckg Thinsations Ritz crackers = 2 points

1 pear = 1 point

1 pckg Special K fruit crisps = 2 points

1 pckg Thinsations chocolate covered pretzels = 2 points

1 pckg Quaker cinnamon spice oatmeal = 2 points

1 cup cocoa = 4 points

Total points eaten = 24.5

Ok, so I ate 4.5 flex points and earned zero exercise points. You might be wondering why I ate so weirdly…or maybe you skip over the food list part of my post cause it’s boring lol

I had a nannying shift today from 4p-11p so I had to take dinner. The family is nice and I could have eaten some of what the kids had for dinner but they almost always eat white pasta with a meat sauce and you can actually see the fat and grease settling on the top, ugh. Even when I wasn’t trying to be healthier I could never eat that. ick. So I took the frozen SmartOnes dinner, my last one – so yah, one more thing outta my freezer! lol. I also took the pear and a bunch of little packages of things.

I figured it was safer to take the thinsations and special K packages then get really hungry there and raid their cookie jar – which, fyi, is always stuffed with really good cookies. *groan* They even had pie this time…apple…kill me. 😛

By the time I got home I was hungry and cold but only had 2 points left. I decided I had to eat something so I chose another package of oatmeal, it’s the only warm food I have that is low in points and quick to make. lol. I know I could have cooked up some frozen veggies but at 11:30pm I want something comforting, not veggies. 😛

The cocoa, well, my reasoning for that little indulgence was I wanted a hot drink but didn’t want the caffeine from the tea cause I have to get up early tomorrow so I want to at least try to get to sleep at a semi decent hour…this reasoning is flawed cause (1) the caffeine in tea doesn’t really affect me all that much and never really keeps me awake and (2) the sugar in the cocoa is just as bad as ingesting caffeine so I’m now all nice ‘n alert anyways lol (it’s 1:35am on Sunday morning in case you’re wondering…I will however change the Publish Time on this post so it shows as being a Saturday post)

I am now off to bed to dream of Red Lobster’s Shrimp Fest – Mmm!Mmm!Mmm! Endless shrimp followed by a romp through the yogurt section of a grocery store – it’s gonna be a good Sunday! 😀

Sidenote: what kind of freak have I become I’m more excited to buy yogurt then go through the outlet mall? Freeeeak! 😛 *crazy dance* 😉

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Christmas Phase 1

13 Oct

Yes, I am aware that Christmas is still far away (73 days!) and most people if they are thinking of it at all think of it in passing or in a “meh, lots of time to get ready” kind of way. I am not that person. lol. I LOVE Christmas time. The music, the way people are nicer on a daily basis, the decorations, the ice skating, the hot chocolate, the buying of presents, the wrapping of presents, seeing the pretty wrapped presents sitting under a tree just waiting to be opened, having an entire day that is guaranteed to be spent with family, the love I swear I can feel emenating from the households and wrapping the earth in warmth, the magic that is in the air…heck, on that one day I even love the snow! lol

Christmas though (in my world) must be dealt with in phases…or I suppose you could say stages…because not only do I want to be able to get gifts for all those I will be visiting when I go back to AB I also want to send gifts to my family in England…this takes a bit of planning though. If I want to send a parcel to England cheaply and have it get there in time for Christmas I have to mail the package in October…crazy huh? I very rarely manage to do this so I spend an exhorbitant amount of money to send the packages quickly so even though I mail them late they get there on time. I am determined to not have to do that this year, determined!

I’m also that crazy person who shops for Christmas presents year round…starting with the boxing week sales that pop up every-frickin-where right after Christmas. Before the first week of January 2011 was over I had already purchased many of the presents I am giving to people for this year, what can I say, I love a good sale. 😀

It’s hard shopping for people that are overseas, because you might find the abso-perfect gift for them but it’s heavy, or an ackward size/shape or explodable and all of those conditions make hassles for shipping.

Luckily this year everything seems to be working out, I only have 2 more presents to get and I already know what they are and where to get them from so I’ll be doing that tomorrow then it’s off to the post office to get the parcel in the mail, yah!

Mailing the first Christmas parcel always makes me feel like the season is that much closer – and I can’t wait! 🙂 I spent this evening writing Christmas cards and wrapping presents and it was so much fun I can’t wait till I can do it again…course Phase 2 won’t happen until end of November or sometime in December when I will wrap the gifts I am taking to AB or giving to friends who are here…something to look forward to! 🙂

I almost made some hot cocoa to drink while I was wrapping presents cause hot cocoa and Christmas just make a good pairing in my opinion but I resisted cause I wanted to use my points on actual food…although, I ended up eating some chocolate buttons so that’s not exactly food lol.

I also almost dipped a spoon in to the Nutella jar while waiting for my water to boil for my evening cup of tea. I was all “go for it, I exercised, one spoonful won’t kill me or derail my entire healthy eating plan” but after I sorta shouted/groaned out loud (not even kidding!) I turned away from the cupboard that has the Nutella jar in it and reminded myself that I don’t need the Nutella, and if I have a spoonful of it then I will feel like a failure for not sticking to my points. Now, in all honesty, I could have had a spoonful of Nutella and not gone over my points, well, not eaten all my exercise points, but I didn’t want my food journal to reflect that. I feel stronger mentally if I don’t cheat with my food and the more days in a row I go without cheating the easier it is to resist the various temptations that pop up…does that sound crazy?

It’s like how the more days in a row I exercise I get physically stronger, the more days in a row I follow my eating plan and don’t cheat I get mentally stronger (uh, in the food area of my life anyways lol). That strength is a good thing to build up because when something truly tempting comes along you can lean on that strength and it’ll get you through the hard part. If I have followed my eating plan properly for 5 days (for example) and on day 6 someone puts a slice of cake under my nose it’s easier to say no to the cake because I don’t want those 5 days to be overshadowed by my giving in and eating the cake…I probably sound cooky…lol

Today I ate:

1 Hearty Medley’s = 3 points

1 pc toast = 1.5 points

1 fried egg = 2 points

1 cheese slice =1  point

1/2 C maple baked beans = 2 points

1 chicken breast = 2 points

1 tbls olive oil = 2 points

mixed veggies = 0 points

1 light babybell = 1 point

20 gram Vegetable Thins crackers = 2 points

28 grams pretzel crisps = 2 points

1 pck chocolate buttons = 3 points

Total points eaten = 21.5

Exercise points earned = 7

The olive oil was used to cook the veggies, they were the last of my grilled mixed veggies from M&Ms Meat Shops. Normally I cook them in the oven but they cook at a totally different temp from the chicken so I tried cooking them on the stove top this time. They turned out pretty decent and I kinda wish I’d tried cooking them that way earlier on. I have always stuck them in the oven and even though I cook them for a shorter length of time and on a lower temp then the package says to some of the veggies always got burned…as in to a crisp, they were black charred pieces that fell apart when I tried to move them. lol. Cooking them this way, none of them burned, they all tasted yummy and they took a lot less time. Bonus!

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Fish Cause Me Stress

12 Oct

I haven’t cooked a salmon steak in a while, months an months I think which is sorta weird since for a while I was eating them at least 2 times a week. I buy them from M&M Meat Shops and they are way delish, they come in a variety of flavours (different sauces) and in my opinion are a win-win option for dinner cause they are easy to cook (for someone who isn’t me lol), taste great, are only 3 points and are the perfect size for your protein. 🙂

Here is my dilemna when it comes to cooking the salmon steaks though, I suck at cooking! and when it comes to cooking meat, poultry or fish I have stress because I worry I am going to poison myself by not cooking it through properly. I have no desire to be throwing up my dinner due to my inability to cook the meat, poultry or fish properly…does anybody have that desire? Doubtful! 😛

Well, tonights salmon steak had a sauce that is freakishly similar in colour to the colour of the fish…uh, durn. That’s problematic. sigh.

Part of my stress comes from my stove, it cooks hotter then it should so for everything I put in it the temp is 25 degrees lower then what the cooking directions instruct (so instead of heating the oven to 450 I heat it to 425) and I always cook/bake the food for anywhere from 2-8 minutes less then what the cooking directions are. I know I have to do this or risk whatever is in the oven becoming a blackened lump of charcoal, ick. Well, the act of cooking an animal product for less time then what the package says to causes me worry cause in my head if the package says “cook for 17 minutes” it should be cooked for 17 minutes or there is risk of my dying…dramatic? Yes. So what? lol

The salmon steaks are supposed to be cooked for 17 minutes but I always put them in for 15 minutes and they turn out fine. This evening though something just didn’t seem right…When I took the fish out of the oven it looked not as cooked as I recall the other salmon steaks looking. Normally some of the sauce is burned around the circumfrence of the fish but not this time…at first I thought score! I finally didn’t lose any sauce due to burning it! Yah!

Well, by the time I got part way through the fish I was noticing the colour and texture of the fish didn’t seem quite right…it was reminding me of sashimi (the colouring anyways) and wasn’t very hot. I put the not-hot issue down to me eating my rice and mixed veggies first, shrug, figured the fish cooled down quicker then I expected but the colour…well…no explaining that away lol It got to the point where instead of eating the fish I was pulling it apart trying to figure out if the funny colour was the sauce, or the lighting, or my cooking…in the end I couldn’t tell and didn’t want to risk eating even more of it in case it was not properly cooked so in to the garbage it went…which sucked cause I was still hungry! lol

I had a bowl of cereal afterwards to make up for the smaller then planned dinner. 😛

Today I ate:

1 Hearty Medley’s = 3 points

1 fried egg = 2 points

1 cheese slice = 1 point

1 piece toast = 1.5 points

1/2 C maple baked beans = 2 points

1 salmon steak = 3 points

mixed veggies = 0 points

1/2 C brown rice = 2 points

1 tbls soy sauce = 0 points

55 g Flax Plus cereal = 5 points

1/4 C 1% milk = 0.5 points

1 pckg Special K Fruit crisps = 2 points

1 Weight Watcher’s one bite coconut chocolate = 1 point

Total Points Eaten = 23

Exercise Points Earned = 7

On the acting front my agent is already proving her worth. 😀 She called me today to find out what I am doing tomorrow and on Monday, there was a toothbrush commercial she wanted to submit me for. Like I was gonna say I was busy? lol I told her I was available so she submitted me. Unfortunatly I didn’t get the audition. Now, before you think my not getting the audition is my fault let me explain how this whole system works. Your agent gets informed of a production that needs actor submissions, they contact their actor and make sure the person is available, they submit their actor, the casting directors receive like 300 and up submissions all for one part, they go through them in the order they receive them and once they have about 20 actors chosen to see they stop looking at the rest of the submissions. By choosing 20 actors to audition they are booking themselves for an entire day which is why they don’t look at more then that. So even though my agent was on the ball so are other agents in this city and more then likely I was in the group of people that didn’t even get looked at. Lame huh? The only hope is that the people they audition they don’t like so they will do a second round of auditions, lol, if they do that they look at the original submissions so maybe they will choose me then. But really, it’s one of those don’t hold your breath situations. lol.

However, when she called to tell me she hadn’t heard back in regards to the submission for the toothbrush commercial she let me know she had a voiceover job she wanted to submit me for and was I cool with that? Of course I said yes! lol.

Two submissions in one day and I haven’t even been signed with her for a week – awesome! 😀 Even if I don’t get an audition for the voiceover job it’s all good cause the more times she submits me for auditions the more casting directors see my portfolio and the more likely they will eventually be all “let’s see what she’s got”. Also, a lot of casting directors like to wait until you have been submitted for three projects they are working on before calling you in for an audition because they want to see that you are persistant and serious in this business…they don’t wanna take their time giving an audition to someone who is only “trying out” acting and not serious about it…it’s the Rule Of Three.

I figure I didn’t poison myself with the fish as I haven’t had to go running to the bathroom so bonus there and while I’m a bit bummed I didn’t get the toothbrush commercial (I have really good teeth and a decent smile!…thanks to my parents paying oodles of money to teeth people over the years lol Thanks mom and dad! 🙂 ) I’m hopeful another audition will come up soon…least my agent is actively working on my behalf – so she’s already doing better then the last agent I had lol. 😀 Score!

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Cold Feet

11 Oct

Brr. It’s been getting chillier and chillier over the past week or so and today my feet really felt it. You might think that’s weird, that it is my feet that are noticing the cold, but it’s not, you just don’t know the context for which the cold feet were happening. 😛

Because of the long weekend Dragon Boating got moved to today (Tuesday) which weather wise turned out to be a great stroke of luck since the weather yesterday was craptastic. Rainy, cold, windy…nasty weather to have to be in let alone be rowing in! Today started off raining but by the time I was going to the docks the rain had stopped and there was no wind, yah! There was a bit of a chill to the air but if you were dressed appropriately all was good. Well, when rowing I wear flip flop sandals, they cost me a wopping $4 at WalMart, I bought them specifically for Dragon Boating, I figured I wouldn’t be upset if the water damaged them cause they were cheap and if the boat tipped and I lost them to the depths of the water well, that’s ok too. 🙂

However, right as we were getting in the boat it started to rain, sigh, and since it had been raining earlier in the day there was a decent amount of water sitting in the bottom of the boat – these two events created the conditions that caused my cold feet cause well, my feet were sitting in water and getting rained on…Brr!

Once rowing it was fine cause you’re so busy rowing you don’t notice that you are cold and getting rained on. lol The only part that I ever notice getting cold is the hand that holds the lower part of the paddle cause that hand gets dunked in water with every stroke. That poor hand, the fingers go numb every time. Luckily part way through the evening we switch what side of the boat we are sitting on so both my hands get the opportunity to freeze lol. 😀

I was fine once I got home and had a hot shower but the weather is starting to affect me in ways that aren’t about rowing…

Everytime I eat I want something hot, salad weather is definitely over, sigh. Today I had oatmeal, soup, cooked chicken breast and hot mixed veg…that’s a lot of hot food! And don’t forget the endless cups of tea lol.

Normally when the weather cools (well, for about the past two years or so) I start making big amounts of soup, stew and chili, then I freeze them in single servings so that whenever I want something hot I have one perfect portion ready to go. I don’t want to do that right now though cause of moving at the end of the month…I am trying to not buy any new frozen foods or dried foods, I will buy milk, bread, yogurt, fresh fruit and fresh veg but that is it, for everything else I am just going to eat what I have and if I run out, well, oh well, shrug.

This is for two reasons, the first is moving is frickin expensive and this will help me save money and the second reason is that I want to move as little food as possible. If I force myself to eat through my food reserves then that is less stuff I have to move and somehow fit in to a smaller kitchen. Makes sense, right?

The only sucky part to this plan is I really really like soup and I don’t have enough canned soup to get me through till the end of the month so I will run out for sure…which, well, will suck. It’s the same with my much loved maple flavour baked beans, I could happily eat those daily but only have one can left, sadness. If nothing else I’ll be having interesting meals for the next few weeks, eating combos of whatever I can find. lol.

Today I ate:

1 pckg Quaker Hearty Medley’s = 3 points

1 can Fiesta Vegetable and Black Bean Soup = 4 points

2 pcs bread = 3 points

2 tsp margarine = 2 points

1/2 pecan tart = approx 4 points

1 chicken breast = 2 points

1/2 Cup brown rice = 2 points

mixed cooked veg = 0 points

1 tbls soy sauce = 0 points

1 Weight Watcher’s lemon cake = 1 point

Total Points Eaten = 21

Exercise Points Earned = 3

Soooo, could’ve done better, could’ve done worse.

After Dragon Boating 7 of us went to this bread bakery/cafe place near the water, they bake “traditional artisan breads in stone hearth ovens”. The place smelled yummy! I was just going to get a tea but one of the guys asked if I wanted to split a tart, he really wanted one but he also over the span of the past year lost a bunch of weigh so he tries to watch what he eats. He knows I have been doing the same thing so I think he figured if we split something neither of us would be eating too too many calories lol. I caved and said yes. *hangs head in shame*

It was a very yummy tart, and at least I only ate half and not the entire thing *I whine defensively* 😉

When I got home I pulled up the cafe website and found that they don’t provide nutritional information, grr, so I have emailed them asking for the info for the pecan tart that we ate and hopefully they will get that to me. For now I had to approximate the points value. I figure that tart could be anywhere from 6-10 points, which means for me since I ate half I’m looking at anywhere from 3-5 points, sigh. I chose 4 points lol. 😛 I hope I get the info from them soon and that I am not too far off…

Slightly ridiculous though, that this is supposed to be my super strict week and I ate half a tart…apparently I lost the full understanding of “strict”.

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Thanksgiving Long Weekend

10 Oct

For those of you reading this who are not in Canada it is Thanksgiving Weekend – gobble gobble lol. Thanksgiving is a bigger deal in the States then in Canada (there’s some huge shopping day in the States after their Thanksgiving) but it’s not like it’s ignored here…well, by people who are not me lol. 😛

The “traditional” Thanksgiving celebration is a family congregates at some point during the long weekend and eats turkey with all the trimmings – and dude, who doesn’t like a full out turkey dinner? It’s like an early Christmas meal lol.

In my family every Thanksgiving long weekend my dad would go visit his mom (Grandma was in a different province so he was gone the entire time) and mom would order us a pizza, I think we’d usually rent a movie as well but I might be wrong about that…for sure though we had pizza. 😀 I loooooove pizza so I was uber happy with this deal since we didn’t order it in very often (my dad has an aversion to cooked cheese and the smell of it distresses his stomach…also, why order a pizza for dinner when one of the people in the house wouldn’t be able to eat it? kinda rude…) I looked forward to this pizza every year lol.

I remember the first year we had Thanksgiving after my Grandma passed away, mom decided to do the turkey dinner thing, I was upset cause I wanted our traditional pizza lol. Random huh?

Since I moved to BC Thanksgiving has been different every year. The first year I was in school so my entire class got together and had a potluck, we had some “traditional” foods, like stuffing, but we also had things like home made macaroni and cheese, some Chinese food, this chicken thing, a tofu dish…it was whatever people wanted to bring so a really random combo of foods. It was great!

The second year my roomie and I had a small group of friends over and we had some homemade dishes as well as some store bought foods and we all chilled and watched movies. Nice an quiet.

The third year I was soooo looking forward to my pizza meal but a girl I was working with was way homesick for her family and the standard turkey dinner thing (she was from SK and was really missing her family and friends) so we went to White Spot and got the full turkey dinner with a slice of pumpkin pie for dessert. They actually serve the turkey dinner year round and to be fair, it’s way legit, totally tasty but it just wasn’t what I wanted. lol. That year, it was kinda funny, I was really wanting pizza and I ended up going to two turkey dinners, the one at White Spot and then a different friend on a different evening made the entire turkey dinner and invited me and like I could say no? Sooooo I had two full turkey dinners, both with pumpkin pie for dessert and no pizza. Can’t really complain since the food was great and getting to eat pumpkin pie two days in a row was a little slice of taste bud heaven lol 😀

This year though I figured I’d finally get my pizza dinner – and I did! I ate a personal sized pizza on Friday and instead of pumpkin pie for dessert I got dessert breadsticks from the pizza place. Delish! 😀 And yes, I know, way bad for me, but as I stated in yesterdays post I have been an epic failure in the making food choices department lately so Friday was just one more day when I sucked at making good food choices. shrug. I regret it but there’s nothing I can do about it now lol.

So now it is late night on Monday, Thanksgiving is over, and this year it passed with barely a whimper. I am not at a standard monday to friday job so the long weekend aspect of the weekend didn’t affect me, I got my pizza and avoided turkey and well, nothing hugely special happened.

I am trying to get back on track with my food choices and my food tracking so today I wrote down what I ate and attempted to make good food decisions. I made a mistake with calculations though so I ended up going over my points, figures, but at least I am trying! Also, once I realized I went over my points I cut myself off from food, which kinda sucked cause it’s a rainy icky day and I keep wanting to make cocoa or have more soup or chocolate or something but I am resisting it all. Maybe my willpower is slowly coming back to me? I’m over by 3 points so it could’ve been a lot worse…just thought I’d point that out for my defence lol.

I have made a promise to myself and here it is: this week, starting today and going through to the end of this coming Saturday I will be a good little Weight Watcher. I will do all my tracking, I will eat only my points (and if needed a small amount of flex points), I will exercise as much as possible (should be 4 times this week minimum) – basically I will do all the things I am supposed to be doing but fell off the rails with. And why this time frame? Cause I have had long standing plans for this coming Sunday to go with friends down to the states to go to Red Lobster, lol, weird huh? I love Red Lobster but there are none in BC, lame! so some of us got together and decided we’d make a road trip to go since Shrimp Fest is on. lol. We saw ads for Shrimp Fest last month and it’s only on till Oct 22 (if I remember correctly) so we’re going before the end of that – shriiiiiiiimp! YUM! 😀

At Red Lobster I am going to allow myself to eat whatever the heck I want since it’s such a rare treat but after that day I am going to be jumping back onto the strict-diet-wagon I am hopping on today.

I have decided that I am going to be super strict girl starting now (minus my Red Lobster day) and going until Christmas. I am sure there will be days where I go over my points, or I eat something stupid or I’m pms-ing and can’t resist the Nutella (hey, it happens lol) but I’m going to do my best to minimize those screw ups. I want to lose 15 pounds by the time I go back to AB for Christmas and if I don’t start now it’s not gonna happen – cause we all know how frickin slow my body allows me to lose weight, erg.

Huh, I guess instead of a New Year’s resolution (something I never do) I am making a Thanksgiving Resolution…here’s hoping I can stick with it!

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3 Good Days

9 Oct

I believe in balance in life, never are all things good or all things bad – I think if something goes great in one aspect of your life then in another area something not so great will happen to keep your balance in check. It’s like a karma thing. 🙂

Well, I’ve had three really good things happen three days in a row…I’m disturbed slightly by this and wondering what is about to happen to balance those things out. But then I think maybe the three good things are balancing out the not so great things that had happened recently so maybe there’s no need to worry…guess I’ll find out! lol

The first good thing was getting the Agent on Thursday – by far the best of all three things! 😀 I will not blather on about it since I already wrote an entire post about it but suffice to say I am still riding high from that lol.

The second good thing was on Friday when my new roomie and I finally found a new apartment. It’s pretty sweet looking and has almost everything we want/need. We realized we were never going to find a place that had everything but this one comes pretty close. 🙂 The rooms are a good size, it’s big enough to fit all our furniture, hardwood floors, decent sized kitchen, little balcony, laundry on site, free covered parking, close to everything a person could possibly need which means I can walk to do stuff instead of drive thereby saving money on gas (which is good cause it went up to $1.40 yesterday! ack!). It’s in a totally different area of the city then where I live now so there will be the fun of getting used to a new area – something I am looking forward to and yet, not looking forward to lol.

The third good thing happened on Saturday. My day job is as an on-call nanny and for that I have to have my cpr/first aid certificate, well, the silly thing expired so I had to recertify. I always think to recertify you should be allowed to just write the test not have to retake the whole class cause geez, 9 hours being told stuff I already know? Boring! Anyways, the good thing was I passed with 100% and can continue to work my day job…ya know, until I become rich and famous lol.

So yah, a good three days. 😀 I wonder what the next three days will hold…

On the food front I have to confess, I have been about the worst Weight Watcher in the history of Weight Watchers for the past, oh, three weeks or so? *hangs head in shame* I don’t know what happened! I mean, I kinda do…I know how it started but I don’t know why I haven’t been able to get myself under control, sigh.

It all started when I got the ulcer attack, I had days of not being able to eat anything, and then when I could finally manage to eat something it was Weetabix cereal drowned in milk. Anything other then the cereal was still causing massive pain but I got to a point where I needed food – I felt like I was being starved to death and really, it’d been like a week since I had eaten properly so in my defence, I was kinda being starved…just ya know, by my own stomach’s ability to digest not by like, some psycho holding me hostage and not feeding me (I watch a lot of Criminal Minds lol)

I got to a point where I would eat something even though I knew I was gonna pay for it with pain cause I just had to eat and I got this mind set that if it’s gonna hurt no matter what I eat I might as well eat something really yummy – make the pain worth it. So I would eat whatever I wanted. I was only eating like once a day so it’s not like I was gorging multiple times a day or anything but for that one meal there were no rules. I ate pie, pizza, cookies, pasta…whatever I craved, shrug. I justified it to myself by saying “go ahead, eat whatever you want, it’s gonna be the only food that goes in you today so might as well make your taste buds happy since no matter what your stomach won’t be”

Once I started being able to eat and not feel pain all the time I did try to eat normally. Mostly cause I noticed that some foods still caused me trouble but others didn’t. I could only eat really small amounts at a time and only about twice a day so I was still feeling starved but not quite as badly lol. But see, that’s when it got bad cause the more I was able to tolerate food the more I was craving really bad for me things and it appeared my ability to say no to myself had disappeared…gain an ulcer lose my self-control? Bad trade off in my opinion. lol.

I started eating pastries, and hot cocoa, and more cookies, and more pie. Every evening I would swear that the next day I’d get back on track and the next day I might even have started it eating properly but somewhere during that day I’d make a stupid move and binge eat on something. sigh. It’s gotten to the point that I am scared to step on the scale and I can see in the mirror that I am bigger. I am poofier in the abdomenal area and my love handles are more handle-y. Combined with the bad food choices I was unable to exercise when the ulcer was really bad and when the ulcer got a bit better I was still missing boxing classes due to apartment hunting.

I’m turning in to that marshmallow dude from the Ghostbuster movie. ugh.

I’m so disgusted with myself, with how I let myself lose all my self-control in regards to food. My mindset was “I’m barely eating so I can eat whatever I want” but when I started to be able to eat again I wasn’t able to change that mindset of eating whatever I wanted and I no longer had the ulcer pain happening to stop me from eating more then once a day so I ended up going on a food binge that lasted weeks. Weeks!!!! Disgusting. 😦

I tried getting back on track last week, I started tracking, I was careful with my points, I even went for a hike cause I wasn’t going to be able to box that day and I wanted to make sure I got at least some exercise. I thought it’d be easy to get back on track but I only lasted two days. I tried again yesterday, I took food with me to the St John’s Ambulance cpr/first aid class I had to spend the day at so I wouldn’t go to the mall that was across the street and buy lunch from the food court. I was doing good yesterday, I ate a healthy breakfast before I left the apartment, ate some of the food I took but when I went to Starbucks to get hot water for the tea bag I had brought with me I bowed to the peer pressure the girl I was hanging out with in the class exerted and got a half sweet peppermint hot chocolate instead. sigh. Then, after class when I hung out with KL the plan was to get a sub from Subway to sneak in to the movie theatre, however, the food court at that mall didn’t have a Subway (we both thought it did!) and we ended up going to the movie with no food. By the time the movie was over we were so incredibly hungry we went to Red Robin’s and split an order of onion rings and we each got an entree. I got a salad, which you might not think is so bad but the salad has a lemon poppyseed dressing, candied walnuts and feta cheese on it…I calculated the points for it once-upon-a-time and I remember it was in the high teens somewhere…bad salad! Oh, and I got a side of garlic bread too…the bread had melted cheese on it…

So now today, yet another day I swore I would be good has come and gone and guess who wasn’t good? I didn’t exercise. I didn’t eat healthy, I haven’t even tracked my points or written down any of the food I ate so who knows how bad I’ve really been? I know I should calculate my points for the day but it’s so depressing seeing just how badly I’ve eaten…

Maybe I’ll manage to be better tomorrow…at this point, I can’t get much worse…*rolls eyes*

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